Descendant's Curse
by Velkan The Impaler
Summary: Danny accidentally sets free an ancient curse, and to destroy it may mean destroying lives. COMPLETE! Please R
1. The Bottle

Here's the more extended summary: Danny and his friends are finally ready for a much needed vacation, until Danny accidentally sets a free a mysterious curse that's literally hundreds of years old, and it threatens the lives of everyone! With a little help, Danny may be the only one who can stop the curse and destroy it for good. To do that, he'll have to keep a sharp eye out, discover the origins of the curse, and look for the _one_ way to destroy it. However, to destroy the curse, Danny might have to kill Sam and Tucker…

Please review! This entire story is outlined, so I know how many chapters this story will have and everything that will happen in those chapters, so please don't give me any suggestions that you think will make the story better. Flames, criticism and anything else is welcome!

Disclaimer: I don't own Danny Phantom or anything related to it.

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_They were alone in the dark house. Megan and Denise should have listened to their parents about not going to the haunted house on the hill. Now, they were trapped inside the dark house. It was almost pitch dark, there was a full moon, and the clock was just about to strike midnight. Megan and Denise were terrified as their eyes filled up with tears. There was obviously something in that house with them._

"_Denise?" Megan asked in a terrified voice. "I'm…scared. I think there may be a ghost in here."_

"_I'm not going to hide it any longer," Denise said. "I'm frightened too. There's no doubt in my mind we're not alone."_

_The two girls continued to slowly make their way through the dark house. Just as they were sure the creeping noises died down, the old house started creaking. A loud creak was heard, loud enough that both Denise and Megan jumped at hearing it. They were tiptoeing so slowly throughout the house that some people with weights attached to their feet would be able to move faster. It was just so frightening for both girls, and their instincts said that when in fear, you move slowly._

_Suddenly, a light shone in from the full moon. Both girls gasped when they looked at the moon's light gleamed on the wall. As they looked at the wall, they were sure they saw the shadow of a ghostly figure standing in the moonlight. Both girls screamed in fear as the ghost figure simply popped out from the wall and out of sight. They continued to scream in fear and angst as they walked backwards, not taking their eyes off the spot where the ghostly figure appeared before their very eyes._

_Their biggest fright, yet relief, came from when they were walking backwards. They bumped into someone…or something. Both girls turned around and began screaming louder until they saw it wasn't a ghost or a monster that they bumped into, but a police officer._

"_What are you girls doing here?" the police officer demanded. _

_Both girls squealed in delight and embraced the officer._

"_We thought there was a ghost or a monster here!" Megan yelled. "Thank you so much for coming to save us from it!"_

"_Ghost or monster?" the police officer asked. "Are you talking about that stupid myth about this house? _

"_Well, yeah…" Megan said. "I mean, we saw a ghost; it was up against the wall only a minute ago!"_

"_That was probably me," the officer said. "Look, you girls are in big trouble."_

"_I know," Megan said, glumly. "I know we weren't supposed to be in this house. I'm sorry."_

"_It's not the fact you're in this house," the officer said. "It's the fact that your parents have been worried sick about you. Come on, I'm taking you kids home."_

_The two girls didn't hesitate for a moment. They gladly accepted the police officer as he led them out of the "haunted" house and into his police cruiser. It was a very dark night. The air was stiff and cold, and the pale white moon was hidden behind thin, dark clouds that slowly covered it. Occasionally, there was a soft breeze that rustled the dead, brown leaves on the ground._

_As the girls walked with the officer over to his police cruiser, Megan turned around to take one more look at the haunted house before she went home. She never wanted to go back to that house again, but ESPECIALLY after what happened when she turned back._

_As Megan turned back, she looked at the very top window in the century-old house. Looking out at her from that window was a tall, dark, intimidating figure. He had a cold expression on his dark face, but she couldn't see any part of him other than his white, gleaming eyes. Then, as she looked at him, the white eyes turned even brighter, almost like staring into halogen headlights. _

_Megan gasped at the figure._

_Then there was a dark picture with four spotlights spinning around in random circles over the darkly lit stage. The camera cut back to a man in his early forties, standing on a set to a television show. The set resembled a haunted house itself, or an extremely frightening looking scene. The show was _Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction_, and the man was Franklin Jones, a relatively new actor to showbiz._

"_What exactly happened on that night?" Jones asked to the camera. "Was it REALLY a ghost Megan saw when she turned back to look at the house? Perhaps it was just an illusion, or an image projected by the moonlight? If so, then how do you explain the fact that it appeared just moments before the officer showed up? Could it really have just been the officer's shadow, or was there actually a ghost in the vicinity that wanted to scare away unwanted visitors? You be the judge."_

"_We'll tell you if this story is true or false at the end of our show. Next, a battle of the supernatural when _Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction_ returns," said the announcer of the show just as they were cutting to a commercial break._

"_Uh, I'll say 'fact'," Madeline Fenton said as she watched the television show. The premise of the show was to tell five stories; some were real, and some were made up by the writers of the show. The viewer's goal was to determine which were real and which ones were made up. At the end of the show, the ones that were real and which ones were not were revealed, so the viewers scored themselves at the end of the show. And the story Madeline just saw was the fourth one, meaning there was one more to go._

"_Madeline! Are you ready to go yet?" her father asked. Her father was a man in his mid thirties, and he had just made reservations and the family's favorite restaurant for dinner. He had his dark hair combed straight to make it look the best it could._

"_Dad, couldn't I watch the last story on this show?" Madeline asked. "It'll be over in about fifteen minutes."_

_Madeline's father stammered for a little while. Finally, he said, "All right, Maddie, I guess it would be okay if you watched the last story. Man, you sure like that show a lot, don't you? Besides, it looks like it'll take your mother another twenty minutes to dry her hair."_

_Madeline turned her attention towards the television as she finished watching a commercial for the upcoming twenty-ninth James Bond movie._

"Come on, Sam, Tucker!" Danny yelled as he ran out of the hotel and onto the stone passage way leading to the beach. "Tucker, we're missing all the girls!"

It was school vacation week, and Danny could tell this was going to be the best week _ever!_ He waited anxiously outside in beach clothes, waiting for Sam and Tucker to come out of the hotel so they could party.

It was a clear, beautiful day. The kind of day that people dream of seeing their entire lives but never to get to actually experience it. The sky was deep blue without a cloud in sight, the sun was bursting with golden light that shined down upon the beach and hotel, the ocean was clear blue and the beach sand was soft white, creating a very picturesque atmosphere. And Danny had absolutely no problem with that.

"Tucker! Sam! Get out here, we're missing all the fun!"

In no time, Tucker and Sam walked out of the hotel, dressed like they were ready for some fun in the sun. Well, Tucker did, anyway. Sam, on the other hand, was wearing all black and was wearing a dark cape to "protect herself" from the sun's rays. Danny and Tucker never quite understood what it was exactly that she had against the sun, but they didn't care. They were ready to take a break from school, getting bullied and picked on, and Danny was _especially_ happy about getting a week off from all the ghost attacks.

Here's how it all happened: a few weeks before, Danny's parents found they had a little extra pocket change, so they decided to buy a scratch card with it. The result: the Fentons won five-thousand dollars, and everyone in the family was excited. Jack wanted to spend all the money on ghost equipment, but Jazz ruined his fun and said that she thought the money should be spent on something that would benefit the whole family. In the end, everyone agreed to a week-long vacation to a seaside hotel, and lucky for Danny, there was enough money left over from the four of them that his parents let Sam and Tucker come along. As it turns out, Jack never _did_ get to buy that ghost equipment. In fact, Maddie and Jazz didn't let Jack bring any ghost equipment _at all_, and they made sure he didn't sneak any. Danny had no idea how much that would help him later on in the vacation.

As the three kids headed to the beach, they all stopped to take in the amazing view. Danny knew that he could possibly never get another chance to experience such a great setting and pure happiness, so he wanted to make the most out of this vacation as he possibly could.

As they got down to the beach, Tucker jumped immediately in the water. Danny considered going in as well, but he saw that Sam wasn't going anywhere near the water. She liked it much more lying in a shaded area, like under an umbrella only a few feet from the ocean.

Danny went over to Sam and lay down on a towel right next to her.

"Well, Sam, I'm pretty stoked about this entire trip. How about you?" Danny asked with a perfect smile over his face.

"To be honest, I can't really complain," Sam said. "With no school or stupid tests to worry about, we can finally relax a little. You know what I mean?"

"Oh, I know what you mean, all right!" Danny said loudly.

He and Sam started inching closer towards each other, until Danny felt cold water splash on him. He looked up and was snapped awake, and saw Tucker standing just barely over his ankles, and he was splashing water at both of them.

Sam put her arms up to block the water while Danny jumped in after Tucker and began splashing him. In no time, Danny and Tucker were in the water and splashing each other savagely, but in a playful manner as well.

The splashing continued until Danny took one more step in the water. That fatal step.

"Ow!" he screamed loudly enough to get Sam and Tucker's, as well as a lot of other people's, attention. Danny lifted up his leg and cuffed his right foot in his hands.

"Danny, what is it?" Tucker asked.

"I stepped on something."

Tucker strolled over to where Danny was and stuck his hand in the water. He pulled out what looked like a regular bottle, but inside it was a swirling dark cloud that gave someone an uncomfortable feeling just looking at it.

"Danny, what is it?" Sam asked, still wearing the dark cape to keep the light off of her skin.

"Danny stepped on a bottle, and there's something really weird about it," Tucker replied, showing Sam the bottle.

"For once, Tucker, I think you and I are on the same page," Sam retorted. "This bottle definitely looks like bad news. Maybe we should turn it into a lifeguard or something."

"Tucker, don't!" Danny yelled, grabbing the bottle from Tucker. Tucker was just about to pop the cork out of the bottle, but Danny didn't think it would be a smart idea. If they opened the bottle, they would let out the black cloud inside, whatever it was. "Sam's right, we need to get this to a lifeguard. Maybe they'll know what to do with it."

The three kids agreed. They went to the nearest lifeguard and showed him the bottle. The lifeguard didn't look like he had any idea what it was either, but he told Danny, Sam and Tucker that they made the right decision about giving the bottle to him and not opening it.

They all went back to playing in the water or relaxing on the beach. Danny tried his best to forget what was in that bottle, but for some reason, he couldn't. There was something about that bottle that deeply disturbed him.

"What _was_ that dark cloud in the bottle, anyway?" Danny whispered to himself shortly after they went back.


	2. Trip to the Museum

A few hours passed. While there was still plenty of daylight left, Danny, Sam and Tucker all went back to their hotel. They had been out in the sun and being active all day, and the really made all three of them hungry. (well, Sam got hungry _without_ moving around or being active)

The hotel room that Danny and his friends were staying in was perfect. It had a light green carpet, separate beds for everyone, a TV, and a built in Nintendo 64 system, a bathroom, and the window had a great view of the beach. Danny seriously could not have asked for a better room.

After ordering some room service for lunch, Danny and his friends pulled out the Nintendo 64 system built into the TV and started playing a multiplayer game on it. They thought it was going to be a great day, but then something happened that Danny didn't anticipate that ruined it all: Jazz.

Jazz walked in while they were playing the Nintendo 64. She stood there smiling at them, expecting them to notice her and pay attention to her. When they didn't, she wiped the smile off her face and put her hands on her hips. Danny, Sam and Tucker still ignored her. After a few more seconds, Jazz put an angry expression on her face and crossed her arms. When her younger brother and his friends failed to notice her after that, she yelled "Hey!"

"Hi," Danny said, meaning to wave to her but really just showing her his palm. He didn't even look at her.

Jazz grumbled to herself and then stormed in front of the TV, blocking their view.

Danny started swerving his head from side to side, trying to see past Jazz and at the screen. "Uh, Jazz, could you move? You're kinda in the way."

"Oh, _I'm sorry!_" Jazz said. She turned the TV off, and the three kids yelled "Hey!" in unison.

"Jazz, what's your problem?" Danny asked.

"Danny, you can't really plan on staying at the beach and playing video games all day, can you?" Jazz asked.

"Actually, I was," Danny smugly said, getting up. "That's what your supposed to do on vacation, isn't it?"

"But why would you just want to do that when you can see all the sights around here?" Jazz said. "Come on, Danny. What say you, me and your friends all go to a museum or something intellectually simulating?"

"Let's not and say we did!" Danny stubbornly replied. "Sorry Jazz. If you want to go to a museum, then fine! But I'm staying here, doing what _I_ want!"

"I wouldn't be so sure about that, Danny," Jazz replied. "If you don't come to the museum and learn something, then I might _just_ have to show Sam and Tucker your third grade Halloween photo."

Danny's eyes widened, then he grit his teeth in frustration. "Anything but that! Fine, you want to go to a museum? Fine! But not for too long, all right?"

Everyone walked down the long hall and into the elevator. The elevator slowly took them to the lobby, and the three walked into the driveway. Jazz got in her parents' car and drove her brother and his friends to the museum.

It was a particularly long ride, especially since Jazz's inept abilities as a driver kept causing her to get lost throughout the trip.

When Jazz finally found the way to the museum, she pulled out her purse as she walked over to the doors. She started digging for money to pay for the tickets, but found she was a few dollars short of a ticket for everyone.

"Danny, do you have five bucks?" Jazz asked.

"Well, yeah," Danny said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a crinkled five-dollar bill.

"Excellent!" Jazz shouted with glee. She snatched the dollar bill out of Danny's hand and walked towards the ticket booth.

"Hey! That five dollars was going towards a souvenir! Or a soda! Or…something!" Danny yelled.

"Come on, Danny. A few hours of touring a museum will be better than any cheap souvenir," Jazz tried to say reasonably as she led Sam and Tucker inside.

"A few _hours?_" Danny said angrily.

He stormed in after Jazz and his and friends. Jazz seemed to marvel at the white, plain walls and the tan marble tile. She seemed to look at every exhibit with a ton of interest and even wanted to take pictures of some of them Even Sam and Tucker found some stuff interesting.

Danny, on the other hand, thought that this entire thing was a waste of time. Jazz took several stops to look at something, ranging from five seconds to five minutes. It didn't matter whether it was a piece of a pillar from the Roman Empire or dirt dating back to prehistoric times, everything seemed to attract Jazz.

After what seemed like the longest time, the four were finally back at the front door once again.

"Okay, Jazz," Danny started, "we've gone around the entire museum and seen every exhibit and thing on display…twice! Can we please go back to the hotel now?"

Jazz seemed to take offense to this. "Danny!" she yelled. "you don't think all of this was spectacular? Not even the paintings from the Renaissance period?"

"If you mean the paintings of those fat, naked, middle aged women in stupid poses, then _no_, I didn't think they were spectacular! Now can we please go!"

"Not yet," Jazz said. As she said this, Danny groaned loudly and slammed his hand over his face and slowly dragged it off. "We still need to see one more thing: a presentation by the world renowned scientist, Dr. Skyler."

"If he's so renowned, then how come I've never heard of him?" Danny said.

Jazz ignored this and led Danny and his friends into an auditorium. The auditorium was a large room with literally hundreds of chairs set up and a large stage in the front of the room.

"How long is this show?" Danny asked as they all grabbed their seats.

"Only about twenty minutes," Jazz said pleasantly, not catching onto the fact that Danny _really_ wanted to leave."

The show started a few minutes later, and a man in his early forties walked onto the stage. He was a little tall, had an average build and thin brown hair. He looked like a nice enough guy.

"Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen," he said as he walked onto the stage. "I am Dr. Skyler, a graduate of Oxford and Carver and a former professor in human biology at M.I.T."

Danny began zoning out. He could care less what this Skyler guy wanted to say, but Jazz constantly kept snapping him awake to pay attention.

"…in conclusion, people," Skyler said a while later, "I think we can all understand that we humans have barely even begun to tap our inner potential and core. But we are all beginning to understand more ways of enhancing ourselves to make us a more developed race. Thank you, and have a good afternoon!"

The entire audience burst into applause as Dr. Skyler walked off stage. Danny was the first to jump out of his seat and yell "Can we go now!"

"Fine, if you're going to be that fussy," Jazz remarked. She led Danny, Sam and Tucker out of the museum and into her car.

The entire ride back, all Jazz would talk about was the museum and the presentation about enhancing human strength that Dr. Skyler gave. No one really paid attention to it, but just so they thought they were, Danny, Sam and Tucker said "uh-huh" every now and then.

When they finally got back to the hotel, the first thing Danny and his two friends wanted to do was go back to the beach. In no time, they were all back on the beach and ready to relax. Danny was annoyed that the sun was only going to be out a little while longer, mostly because Jazz had just eaten up a huge chunk of the day by making them go to a museum.

Tucker went into the water, but only up to his knees. He couldn't swim that well, and he became even more nervous when he looked at the lifeguard tower. He saw a sign that read NO LIFEGUARD ON DUTY: SWIM AT YOUR OWN RISK.

At first, Tucker was nervous about there not being a lifeguard around, but he suddenly seemed to get interested in something. Slowly, he went over to the lifeguard tower, almost like something caught his eye.

Danny was lying on the sand, but he saw Tucker walking over to the lifeguard tower out of the corner of his eye. He sat up and saw Tucker actually climbing up the tower.

"Tuck! What are you doing?" Danny yelled.

"Danny, that bottle you found in the water earlier today…it's in here!" Tucker said, full of excitement.

"Yeah, so what?" Danny asked, not really seeing the big deal about it.

"Well, why don't we just take it? Maybe we can figure out what that black stuff swirling around inside it was," Tucker replied, reaching the top of the tower. He reached over and pulled the mysterious bottle out.

"Tucker, put that back!" Danny yelled anxiously running over to the base of the tower. "That bottle is bad news! We're better off letting the lifeguards and the police decide what to do with it!"

"Come on, Danny," Tucker said, completely ignoring everything Danny just said. He took the bottle and started climbing down the ladder to the lifeguard tower. "I didn't say I was going to open it, I just want to take a look at it."

Saying this, Tucker jumped the last few steps on the ladder and landed feet-flat on the soft, warm sand. He started walking away and put the bottle in a pocket in shorts.

"Tuccckkkkeeeeerrrrr…" Danny said through gritted teeth.


	3. A Surprise Attack

Tucker began walking away from Danny and closer to Sam. Danny grit his teeth as he stormed after his friend.

"Tucker, that bottle is nothing but trouble!" Danny insisted when he was a merely a few feet from Tucker. "I want you to go back up to that lifeguard tower and put it back where you found it."

Tucker scoffed at that. "What's your problem, Danny? I told you, I'm not going to actually _open_ it, I just want to study it to see if we can figure out what it is."

"Studying on vacation, huh?" Danny said loudly with an obvious tone of annoyance in his voice. "Look, my day's been ruined enough with Jazz wanting to take us to a museum. I don't want you making it harder by…"

"Cool it, Danny," Tucker said, putting his hand in front of Danny's face. "Look, I'll just look at the bottle tonight, and then tomorrow we can put it back. No bid deal, okay?"

Danny saw no point in arguing. He just let Tucker do what he wanted. Danny just hated that Tucker was being so stubborn. After all, it was thanks to him that Tucker got to be here at all, so the least Tucker could've done was respect him. But, of course, he didn't.

Only about an hour later, Danny and his two friends walked off the beach and headed back up to their hotel. However, once they got there, they soon realized they were bored and had nothing to do. Nothing was on the limited amount of cable channels their television got, and they weren't in the mood to play through _Star Fox 64_ a tenth time on the built in Nintendo 64 system.

As soon as they got up into the room, they all slumped on their beds and stayed quiet. None of them knew what to do, until Tucker broke the silence. He went over to his luggage bag and started pulling something out. It appeared to be a black box with a few messy wires attached to it. Sam and Danny sat up when Tucker pulled it out.

"Tucker, what's that?" Sam asked.

"This?" Tucker asked as he completely pulled the box out. "This is just my Playstation 2. I brought it with me just in case we got bored."

Sam and Danny's faces dropped.

"A PS2!" Danny yelled. "While we were here living off of those blocky pictures in _Pilot Wings 64_, you were keeping a Playstation 2 all to yourself?"

"Hey, I wasn't just keeping it to myself!" Tucker insisted. "I just forgot I packed it. Besides, I didn't even bring any good games, anyway."

"Really? What games did you bring?" Sam asked.

"Uh…only _God of War, Nightfire, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas,…_" Tucker started.

"Never mind!" Danny yelled angrily. "Just plug in that PS2 so we can stop paying seven dollars an hour for a Nintendo 64 game."

Without saying a word, Tucker began plugging the Playstation2 into all the ports that it needed to go in. While he was working on it, Sam and Danny began thinking.

"Sam, when do you think that PS3 is going to come out?" Danny asked. "I feel like I've been waiting forever for it to come out."

"I have no idea," the Goth admitted.

A moment later, Tucker finished plugging all the cables in. He opened up the case that had _Nightfire _in it and popped the disc into the console. A few seconds later, the main screen popped up on screen.

"Okay, we got three controllers, which is just enough for all of us to play at the same time," Tucker said, putting a multitap into the first port. He quickly added three more controllers so everyone could play.

Before long, everyone had chosen the characters they wanted to play as, they all agreed on what mode to play on, and they agreed on where to play. The game commenced, and the room became a very eerie silent, except for the James Bond theme playing in the background.

It was an every-man-for-himself situation, and the three kids knew it. They all became so wrapped up in the game that they completely forgot about anything else. All they were thinking about was how much they wanted to fight the other players and put a bullet in their avatar's head.

Danny, however, was able to use this to his advantage. When he stole a look at Tucker's screen and saw that Tucker was trying to follow Sam as he aimed at her with a sniper, he didn't waste a second. He quietly slid his hand right behind Tucker and saw the mysterious bottle sticking out of one of the pockets. He slowly pulled the bottle out of Tucker's pocket and put it in his own. It worked; Tucker didn't even notice.

Danny was trying to continue playing the game until his ghost sense went off. He gasped, then dropped his controller and ran towards the window.

"What would a ghost be doing here? There shouldn't be a ghost portal anywhere close!" Danny yelled. Suddenly, a white ring appeared around his torso, and almost immediately afterwards the ring split into two. The two white rings started moving simultaneously in opposite directions, upwards and downwards, on Danny's body. As they elapsed over Danny, Danny's casual beach shirt changed to a black jumpsuit, same as his swimming trunks. His raven-black hair turned snow white and his pale blue eyes turned a glowing green.

Now Danny Phantom, Danny went intangible and flew out of the hotel. As he was flying, he saw a little boy playing in the streets, and there was a ghost that saw him and was charging straight for him.

The ghost was just about to attack the little boy until Danny fired some ectoplasmic energy at the ghost and sent it flying into the ground. At that moment, all of the bystanders screamed in panic and fled the streets.

The angry ghost looked up and saw Danny hovering in mid air, ready to attack again.

"Hey, why don't you pick on someone your own size?" Danny said as the ghost first looked at him.

The ghost sprung up from the ground and quickly tried to attack Danny, but Danny was able to jump out of the way just in time. He fired more energy at the ghost, but the ghost was just able to dodge a lot of them and then catch Danny off guard by blasting him with some energy.

Danny got sent flying backwards and crashed into a wall, but by now he was used to it. He got up without too much trouble and continued fighting.

By now, several people in the streets were hiding and didn't want to even watch what was going on. They were way too frightened to watch the battle, mostly because they had never actually witnessed a ghost before.

Danny and the ghost continued to fire shot after shot at each other, until Danny realized no one was in plain sight. (except for the little boy he was trying to rescue, who was still staring in awe) From there, Danny went all out and didn't show the ghost any mercy. In less than twenty seconds, it was down.

Danny pulled the Fenton Thermos out from his jumpsuit and saw it was set to RELEASE.

"Hmm, guess _this_ is where the ghost came from?" Danny said. "Good thing Jazz didn't make sure _I _didn't bring any ghost stuff with me. I guess I accidentally released that ghost by accident. Oh well, no biggie."

Danny instantly began sucking the defeat ghost into the Fenton Thermos and slammed the lid on it, sealing the ghost in.

Danny reverted back to his human form when no one was looking, and saw that the child he was trying to rescue had hidden since he last checked for safety. When the little boy came out from hiding, he saw the Ghost Boy was gone and Danny was standing there.

"Where'd that other guy go?" the boy asked.

"What other boy?" Danny said, pretending to be oblivious. He didn't even want a little boy to know that he was part ghost and could go ghost whenever he pleased.

The little boy was about to ask something, until he heard a woman shriek.

"TOBY!" yelled a desperate sounding woman, sounding as if she were in great despair. "Toby, are you all right!"

A woman in her early thirties ran over to the boy and picked him up, looking like she was ready to burst into tears. She had thin blonde hair and a thin structure. "Oh, Toby, thank heavens you're all right!"

Danny started smiling. The boy had to be Toby, and the woman had to be his mother. Danny was happy to see that people were finally happy and able to rejoice from his work, instead of running away, screaming.

As the mom continued to embrace her child, Danny's father, Jack, came bolting onto the streets. He looked like his adrenaline was sky-high and he was ready to burst like an active volcano.

"Where's the ghost!" Jack yelled. Even though he was on vacation, he was still in his tight, orange jumpsuit. "Danny, did you just see that ghost around here? Grrrrrr…I should have had that ghost, but _noooooooooooooooo_, Jazz just _had_ to tell me not to bring any ghost weapons! Now that ghost is on the loose and…"

Jack looked and saw that Danny was giving him an "it's-okay" look. The woman was still holding Toby in her arms and giving Jack a look as if she was saying he was crazy.

"Oh…is this your son, sir?" the woman asked Jack.

"Huh? Wha? Who's son?" Jack asked, not paying attention. It took him a moment to realize that she meant Danny. "Oh, yes. Danny. Yes, he's my son. Why?"

The woman once again looked like she was just ready to burst into tears. "Your son saved my little boy's life from that ghost just now!"

"Really?" Jack said, his eyes lighting up. " 'Atta boy, Danny!" Jack yelled, putting his arm around Danny's shoulders and tightly squeezing them. "I knew you wouldn't disappoint me!"

"Uh, it was really nothing," Danny managed to choke out. "I was just doing what I do."

"Well, in that case," the woman said with a smile starting to spread across her face, "my husband and I were going out to dinner tonight, but we've had a lot of trouble finding a babysitter. Your son certainly looks like a responsible young man. Would he be interested in babysitting my Toby tonight?"

Danny tried to say something, but he was cut off by his father. "Of course Danny would be interested!" Jack yelled. "Danny would make a great babysitter! He'd have no trouble with it!"

"Well, actually…" Danny tried to say. Jack, however, continued to stampede over him.

"What time should I drop Danny off at your house?" he asked brightly.

"6:30," the woman responded with a pleasant smile on her face. "I'm so happy that you'd be willing to take the time to baby-sit Toby. I'm sure you two will have a blast!"

Jack finally let Danny go and started talking with the woman. He got her address and the directions to her house. Danny had stared warily at the two parents as they discussed the plans.

"_Well, this is just great,"_ Danny thought to himself, starting to feel a bit of rage bubble inside of him. _"First, Tucker goes completely against what I tell him to do, and now THIS! I don't know a thing about babysitting! What am I supposed to do?_"

After what seemed like the longest time, Jack and the mother of Toby finished talking. Jack walked over to Danny, brimming with pride and excitement.

"Well, son, it's all settled," he said. "You're going over Mrs. Goonbaker's house tonight to baby-sit her son at 6:30."

"Mrs. _Goonbaker_?" Danny asked, getting a little nervous just by the name.

"Yapp!" Jack said. "I'll be driving you there. I'm sure you two will have loads of fun together!"

Danny could only let out a faint laugh at the idea of having to baby-sit a four-year old. He rescues Toby from a ghost, and then he's forced into babysitting him later that night. Danny began to imply that this vacation wasn't going to be everything that he hoped for. Unfortunately for him, his problems were just getting started.


	4. Babysitting Nightmares

Before I begin, I would first like to thank both Horselvr4evr123, DemonSorcess and enigmaticpenguin for taking the time so far to review this story. I really appreciate you guys writing my reviews, because it makes me feel really good knowing that people are reading this and enjoying it. (of course, enigmaticpenguin probably already knows all about this) Anyway, thanks again guys! Keep the reviews coming! (any new reviewers are still welcome, though!)

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While there was still some daylight left, the sun was just setting, creating a beautiful mix of yellow, orange and purple in the sky that glistened over the calm waters on the beach. Danny wanted to be able to sit out on the beach and enjoy the scenery, but he couldn't. He was in the Fenton RV with his dad driving him to Mrs. Goonbaker's house to baby-sit her four-year old son, Toby.

"Dad, why did you make me do this?" Danny asked during the ride over. "I mean, I didn't even _want_ to spend my vacation babysitting some kid I met on the street! Can't you just call Mrs. Goonbaker to tell her that I got sick and can't make it?"

"Of course not!" Jack snapped. "Danny, it's about time you learned some responsibility. I can't remember the last time you did something decently responsible or when you put your time aside for others in need!"

"_You don't know the half of it,_" Danny mumbled at that remark. Danny wanted to continue arguing with his dad about the situation, but he knew it wouldn't do him any good. Plus, who knows? Maybe he'd have fun with Toby?

A few minutes later, Jack pulled into the Goonbakers' driveway. Their house was two stories tall, was painted white and looked pretty luxurious. Inside, Danny saw that there was a large living room with fluffy green carpet and a kind of large television set. There were a few sofas and chairs scattered around the room for comfort, and Danny thought he'd have to sit in them a lot to keep himself calm when he was babysitting.

"Thank you so much for coming on such short notice," Mrs. Goonbaker said as Danny and Jack walked in. "I'm sure you and Toby will have tons of fun together tonight!" Her smile was extremely white, and she looked like she had put on tons of makeup since Danny last saw her a few hours earlier.

"It was really nothing," Danny said, trying to be as polite as possible. In reality, he actually _was_ annoyed that he had to throw an entire night away to baby-sit a little kid. But there was nothing he could do about it now.

Mr. and Mrs. Goonbaker walked out of their house a short while later, and Jack followed close behind them. In no time, Danny was just staring at Toby sitting on the floor with a huge grin on his face. Toby was a kid who was barely half Danny's height. He had light brown eyes and darker, thicker brown hair.

Danny and Toby just stared at each other for a while until Toby finally said "hiiiiiiiiii!" in a very cheerful way.

Danny nervously put his hand up to wave back. "So, when's bedtime for you?"

"Mommy says I get to stay up late!" Toby said excitedly. "She says I can stay up until nine tonight!"

"9:00, huh?" Danny asked. "Well, that's still a good two and a half hours away. What does mommy usually make you for dinner?"

"Soup!" Toby once again replied full on enthusiasm.

"Uh, okay then," Danny said. "I'll…uh, go fix your soup. Stay out of trouble, now."

Danny went into the kitchen and didn't waste any time. He started following all the instructions carefully and in less than ten minutes, the soup was finished. He poured it into a small bowl and gave it to Toby.

"There you go, Toby," Danny tried to say with as much cheer in his voice as possible. "Eat up."

"Thank you!" Toby brightly said with his mouthful of teeth showing. He carefully tried to take the soup from Danny, but accidentally spilled some and it landed all over Danny's shirt.

Danny started screaming in pain as the hot liquid came into contact with him. Twenty minutes later, he was walking out of the kitchen with _another_ bowl of soup, along with a noticeable wet spot on his shirt. This time, Danny didn't let Toby touch the bowl at all. He just placed in right in front of him when they were at the table.

A while later, Danny looked at Toby and said "Well, what does mommy like to do after you've eaten?"

"I have a baff!"

"A…bath?" Danny asked nervously. "You want me to give you a bath?"

Toby once again nodded his head with excitement. Danny groaned, then took Toby into the bathroom. Danny filled up a bathtub with warm water, and then poured a decent amount of bubble bath into the water. He later put Toby in the water and just stared and watched him for a little while. It wasn't long before Toby started splashing around and got water everywhere, including on Danny.

"_If I had known I was going to get this wet, I would have brought a change of clothes,"_ Danny said to himself as Toby was having the time of his life just by splashing warm water in a bathtub.

A few minutes later, Toby was out of the water and dried off. Even though it was just barely an hour into the night, Danny was already exhausted. After Toby was in his pajamas, Danny said, "so, what does mommy do after she's given you a bath?"

"She plays Gamecube!" Toby said happily.

"Gamecube?" Danny said. The mere thought of the word put a smile on his face. "Now you're talking! Come on, let's go play some gamecube!"

Danny saw a gamecube hooked up to the TV and ran over to start playing it. He started looking through all the games, and immediately his face dropped.

"How come you only have Mario sports games?" Danny asked. "Where are the good games? Where's _Resident Evil 4? _Where's _Tales of Symphonia_? Where's anything!"

Toby didn't understand a thing Danny said. He stared at Danny with confused eyes, then pulled out a game: _Paper Mario and the Thousand Year Door_.

"Let's play this!" Toby said happily. Danny really had no choice but to agree.

Danny was hoping he'd get to play the game a little bit, but that didn't happen. For the entire time, Toby was the one playing the entire game. Danny didn't so much as touch the controller as Toby played away on it.

All Danny could do that entire time was wait for the clock to strike nine. When that moment finally came, Danny jumped up.

"All right, Toby, it's time for bed!" he said, smiling. Now he was finally going to get some time to himself.

Toby didn't put up any resistance going to bed. Danny made sure Toby got into bed, and then tucked him in nice and tight.

"Night night," Danny said cheerfully as he tucked Toby in. "Don't let the beddy bugs bite." Danny shuddered as he heard himself say that; he hadn't heard it in years.

Danny was able to go back out to the living room and plop down in one of the chairs. He turned on the TV and waited to see if there was anything on in primetime that night. He started flipping through the channels, and just as he finally found a show he liked, he heard the door to Toby's bedroom open. Danny looked over and saw Toby walking out of his room.

"Can I get some water?" Toby innocently asked.

Danny had to hide the exasperation, but didn't say anything on the lines of "no". He got up with no trouble and walked Toby to the kitchen. He went into the cabinet and pulled out a small cup that had a picture of Oscar the Grouch. Danny poured some tap water into it and then handed it to Toby.

Toby drank the water down in a few gulps, then made a refreshing "ahhhhhhhhhhhh" sound once he finished. "Thank you!"

"You're welcome," Danny tried to say pleasantly. "Back to bed now."

Danny began walking away until he heard Toby say "Can you give me a piggy back ride to my room?"

Danny stopped in his tracks. He grit his teeth, but then tried to put on a smile. He turned around and looked at the innocent child staring at him with hopeful eyes for a piggy-back ride.

Danny sighed and then walked over to Toby. He put his back to Toby and then bent over. "All right," Danny agreed. "Hop on my back."

Toby gleefully climbed onto Danny's back and Danny began standing up straight while making sure that he didn't drop Toby. He started keeping a firm grip on Toby's legs to make sure Toby didn't fall off, and Danny even made some airplane sounds to make Toby happier.

When Danny was only a few feet from Toby's bedroom, he heard Toby say "Hey! What's this?"

Danny stopped as he felt Toby reach into his pocket. He turned around and Danny saw Toby holding the bottle that Danny had taken from Tucker earlier that day; the bottle with the swirling dark cloud inside of it.

Danny gasped and put Toby on the ground. When Toby was safely on his feet, Danny desperately said "Toby, you have to give that bottle to me! That bottle is…bad!"

Toby was smiling and laughing, thinking that it was all a game. "You want the bottle? First you'll have to chase me!"

Toby started running around the house, and Danny was immediately panic-stricken. He thought Toby would do something to accidentally break the bottle and let the dark cloud out, whatever it was.

Danny had no choice. He started running after Toby, yelling "Toby! Give the bottle back! I'm not fooling!"

Danny could outrun Toby easily, but since Toby was ten years younger than him and was in a confined space, Danny didn't give it anywhere near his best. He continued running until he caught up with Toby and grabbed him by the back of his pajama shirt. Toby screaming "Hey!" was heard as soon as Danny got him.

"Okay Toby, give me the bottle," Danny said in a not very pleasant voice.

"Mommy wouldn't want me to. You didn't say the magic words," Toby replied, grinning.

Danny once again sighed and said, "Give me the bottle _please!_"

Toby said "okay!" very loudly and then started handing the bottle to Danny. As soon as Danny grabbed it, Toby pulled it away. He yelled "tricked you!" and started laughing like a crazed hyena.

Danny, trying his best not to lose his patience, just went for the bottle again and the two started tugging at it. Well, Toby was, anyway. Danny was just trying his best not to wrench it out of Toby's hands and send it flying in the air.

Finally, Danny grabbed the bottle from Toby and had it in his grasp. He was walking away from Toby and trying to put it in a safe place until Toby jumped on Danny from behind and knocked him to the ground. Danny hit the soft carpet with a loud thud, and the bottle came flying out of his hand. Luckily, it didn't break once it hit the floor.

Toby ran over to the bottle and picked it up, then resumed running. This time, Danny didn't hold back so much. He started thundering after Toby and finally caught up with him again. He tried pulling the bottle from Toby's hands so much that Danny actually pulled too hard. The bottle went flying up into the air and crashed onto the floor, but this time, on the tiled kitchen area.

The bottle smashed into pieces on impact. No sooner did the bottle break, but a violent wind started brewing up inside the house. Toby started screaming in fear and ran over to hug Danny for protection. The room became extremely dark as the violent wind howled through the house and blew everything in its path.

As the wind was blowing, Danny opened his mouth and a cloud of blue smoke started coming from inside. It was his ghost sense, but it wasn't normal. Instead, the blue smoke started pouring out of his mouth like a violent waterfall. The blue smoke was coming out so fast that Danny could hardly breathe.

Meanwhile, Toby was clinging to Danny as hard as his little fists would let him. When Danny's raging ghost sense finally calmed down, a huge black cloud started swirling around. What's weirder was that Danny could have sworn he saw someone in the black cloud; it looked like a figure from a scary movie. The figure seemed to have a very dark cloak and a terrifying face that somewhat resembled a skull. However, Danny passed it off as an illusion, as the image disappeared less than a second after Danny saw it.

Soon, the black cloud started flying outside and a loud thunderstorm started brewing in the skies. Bright lightning was illuminating the dark night sky, but it was louder than any lightning Danny ever heard.

Immediately following that, the wind abruptly died down, but the room was still pitch dark. Toby was clinging to Danny and had tears pouring out of his eyes. He was just so frightened by what had just happened.

Even Danny was silent and had an increased heart rate. He was breathing heavy while Toby was sobbing as he clung to Danny. Danny started gently patting Toby on the back as he observed the now-destroyed room. Almost everything in the room was blown around by the gust of wind and looked like an internal tornado had struck the place. There was a very obvious silence that was non-threatening, yet it made Danny feel extremely uncomfortable.

"It's okay, Toby," Danny said, gently patting Toby on the back as Toby continued to cry in his arms. "Everything's going to be fine."

Danny was trying to comfort Toby the best he could, but in reality, he had no idea whether or not everything was going to be okay. He looked out the window and saw that even in the night there was an obvious dark cloud in the sky, with savage lightning striking down from the cloud.

Then he looked down at the floor and saw the broken bottle that had the dark cloud in it.

"_I knew that bottle was bad news…"_ Danny thought to himself. There was no doubt in his mind that the bizarre things that just happened came from the bottle being smashed and the dark cloud being freed.


	5. Terror in the Sky

The room had such an obvious silence, it was almost deadly. Danny and Toby warily looked out the window to see the dark clouds swirling around outside and the violent thunderstorm that had been created. It looked like nothing Danny had ever seen before. He was terrified enough of it, so he couldn't imagine what Toby was feeling. Danny was sure the entire thing happened because of the bottle that he found on the beach earlier that day breaking. It couldn't just be a coincidence.

"It's okay…" Danny managed to quietly say as he continued softly patting Toby on the back, trying to make him as comfortable as possible. Danny looked around the room and saw everything blown around and couldn't believe it.

Suddenly, the door to the house burst open with a terrified woman screaming "TOBY!" Danny turned around and saw Toby's parents in the doorway. Both of them were clearly terrified of what happened as well.

Toby's mother ran over to Toby and pulled him out of Danny's arms. She picked him up and cuddled him close to her. Even though she obviously wanted to say something, she didn't.

Her husband looked at her in a nervous way, then went over to Danny and pulled out his wallet. He started shoveling through it until he found a twenty dollar bill. He handed the bill to Danny but didn't say a word. Danny gently took the money and shoved it in his pocket.

Even though there were now four people in the room, everyone was dead silent. Toby's parents had come home because they were so frightened for him and needed to make sure that he was okay.

Moments later, a loud engine was heard outside and the sound of it coming to a sudden halt. A high-decibel screeching sound was heard, and soon afterwards the door burst open and Danny's father was standing there.

"Danny?" Jack yelled, looking fairly panic-stricken himself. "Are you all right? What happened?"

"I…I don't know," Danny lied.

"Mrs. Goonbaker, I'll be taking my son home now," Jack said walking over to Danny. "Thank you for letting him baby sit for Toby. I'm sure they both had a great time."

Jack walked Danny out to the Fenton RV with his arm around Danny's shoulder. Jack and Danny hopped in the RV as Jack drove out of the Goonbakers' driveway and back towards their own hotel.

The Goonbakers stayed quiet after Danny and Jack left. Neither of them said a word until Mrs. Goonbaker caught something on the floor. She looked down and saw the glass shards of the bottle that had smashed on the ground.

"Honey, what's this?" Mrs. Goonbaker said, picking up one of the glass shards?

Meanwhile, Danny and Jack were riding in the Fenton RV back to their hotel. The entire ride was silent, especially since Jack needed to pay all the attention he could. He couldn't get distracted by the fierce bolts of lightning that kept flying across the sky, temporarily illuminating it.

When they finally pulled back into the hotel, Danny and Jack ran inside as fast as they could. When they passed through the revolving door, they ran to the elevator and pushed the button to go to the floor their room was on. Even though they were inside, they still ran as fast as they could to their room. Jack inserted the key card into the slot to his room while Danny pulled out his key card and put it into the slot to his.

Both of them went in their rooms. Danny ran inside and saw Sam and Tucker staring out the window at the furious lightning as it streaked across the sky. But as soon as Danny opened the door to their room, they both turned around from the window and screamed "Danny!"

Both of them ran over to Danny and immediately, looking like they were terrified of what was going on as well.

"What's going on!" Sam asked with obvious fear in her voice. "What's with the lightning?"

"Yeah, the meteorologists didn't say _anything_ like this!" Tucker added.

"Well, I don't know where to start," Danny said, pretending to be scratching the back of his head. "You see, when we were playing _Nightfire_ earlier today, I noticed that the bottle I found on the beach was sticking out of Tucker's pocket, so I…"

"Wait a minute!" Sam interrupted. "What was the bottle doing in Tucker's pocket?" She turned towards Tucker. "You didn't take it out of the lifeguard tower, did you?"

Before Tucker got to answer, Danny continued. "Anyway, I took the bottle out of Tucker's pocket without him noticing, and I still had it in my pocket when I went to baby sit Toby earlier tonight. Long story short: Toby found it and it ended up smashing when I tried to take it back from him. When the bottle smashed, that cloud came pouring out."

"So, the bottle broke?" Sam said. She turned towards Tucker. "Tucker, this is all your fault! Why did you take that bottle back after we gave it to the lifeguard!"

"Hey, don't blame me!" Tucker said defensively. "Danny was the one who broke it. Besides, how do we even know that the bottle smashing is the reason behind this?"

"Oh, you're _right_ Tucker!" Sam said sarcastically. "It's _all_ a _coincidence_, isn't it!"

Tucker didn't say anything. "Fine! If you're going to be like that, I'm going to bed!"

Tucker hopped into his bed and didn't say a word. He pretended to fall asleep instantly, even though it was quite obvious he was still awake.

"Maybe Tucker's right," Danny said a short while later. "Why don't we just hit the sack and hope that when we wake up in the morning, the cloud will be gone?"

Sam agreed. Both of them crawled into their separate beds and tried to get to sleep, even though the violent lightning made it difficult.

It was a few hours later when Danny woke up. He adjusted his eyes to the light when he opened them. He pulled himself out of bed and quietly walked over to the window, trying not to wake up Sam and Tucker. The good news for him when he went to the window was that the lightning stopped. However, he was confused when he saw a large amount of people grouping together in the streets, and they appeared to be pointing to something in the sky.

Danny's heart sank when he saw what everyone was staring at. There was a massive, dark cloud that was covering a huge chunk of the sky. Even though it wasn't doing anything other than floating there, everyone was terrified of it. It was obvious to them that it wasn't your average, everyday rain cloud.

"_Was that what was in that bottle?" _Danny quietly asked himself as he stared at the cloud. _"Well, no one here knows about my ghost-half except for my parents, Jazz, Sam and Tucker. Maybe this is my chance to show the people that I'm not here to cause trouble. I'm going ghost!"_

Danny once again transformed into his ghost half, but he tried to do it as quietly as he could. As soon as he was morphed into his ghost half, he went intangible and passed through the walls of the hotel. When he became visible again, everyone began screaming and pointing to him as he flew through the air towards the black cloud.

"Hey guys," Danny said, waving to everyone pointing at him down below. "I'll be your weird-cloud-destroyer today!"

Saying this, Danny started charging up an ectoplasmic blast in his hand. He took aim and fired it at the black, swirling cloud when he was only a few yards away from it. As he fired it, he watched the blast go to the cloud and strike it.

Danny was hoping the blast would penetrate or destroy the cloud, but that didn't happen. In fact, the cloud seemed to just deflect the blast as if it were nothing.

Danny couldn't believe it. He stared in shock as he watched his blasts time after time have absolutely no effect on the dark cloud.

"What's going on?" Danny asked himself. He looked down and saw that everyone seemed confused and upset that he wasn't able to do anything to destroy the cloud.

Danny was now extremely nervous. Not only did he not have any great idea on where the cloud came from or what its origins were, but he also now didn't seem to know what could destroy it. Danny realized it was pure conjecture that the bottle and the cloud were related, but whether or not they were, Danny knew the cloud couldn't be a good thing. What made it all the more worse was that now Danny had no idea how to attack the cloud or how to make it go away.

"How am I supposed to destroy this thing?...," Danny weakly thought to himself as he stared at the menacing black cloud in the sky.


	6. Looking for Help

Danny desperately tried firing more and more blasts and the dark cloud in the sky, but there was no success in it. Blast after blast hit the menacing cloud, but none of them seemed to affect it in the slightest. The cloud was over a quarter-of-a-mile in diameter, but Danny was sure that its larger size wasn't what was making it stronger.

"Okay, this isn't working, is it?" Danny weakly asked as he looked at the raging, intimidating cloud in the sky. "I'm outta here!"

Danny immediately started flying away until he noticed two people in the crowd: Sam and Tucker. They must have woken up and ran outside to see how he was doing. Danny swooped down at them and gave everybody around a rush of panic.

"Guys, this thing is really mean!" Danny yelled. "I talking, Lancer's-Final-Exam-mean!"

Tucker seemed to shiver at the thought, but Sam just jumped in and said "We need to learn more about that cloud thing before we can attack it! Better yet, we need to learn more about it before it does something really, _really_ bad!"

The three of them walked back into the hotel (okay, Danny flew; he went intangible and passed through one of the windows and back into their room) As soon as they were all regrouped back into their room, they immediately started planning on what they should do to stop the curse.

"How did you guys end up outside anyway?" Danny asked, transforming back into his human form. "When I went outside to battle that cloud, you guys were asleep."

"We heard blasting out there," Tucker replied. "I woke up and saw you right in front of the cloud. I woke Sam up and we both ran outside as fast as we could to see if you were okay."

"Thanks for caring, guys," Danny plainly said. As soon as he thanked them, a question popped into his head. "Hey, wait a sec? Where are my parents? I thought for sure they'd…"

No sooner did Danny start this thought than his dad started banging on the door to the room. He was screaming "Danny! Danny, are you in there!"

Danny anxiously ran over to the door and opened it as quickly as he could. Jack looked like he just saw someone in his family get overshadowed by a ghost, with a clear sign of panic on his face.

"Thank the sweet smell of cinnamon rolls you're all right!" Jack yelled when he saw Danny was in his room with Sam and Tucker. "There's a massive cloud outside and I'm positive it means something bad!"

"Uh…it was the cloud that made all that thunder and made you take me home early from babysitting last night. Remember?" Danny said to his father.

"What!" Jack yelled. "It's _that_! Maddie, get the Fenton bazooka stat!"

"Jack!" Danny heard his mom yell from the other room, "The Fenton Bazooka is at home, on the paper!"

Jack smacked himself on the forehead and yelled, "Jazz! You see why I always carry that thing with me wherever I go!"

"Dad, can you stop yelling like that?" Danny lightly asked. "You're kinda embarrassing me."

"Oh…sorry," Jack said. "Well, anyway, I'm going into my room to think about what action needs to be taken to destroy that thing! I have the weirdest feeling that's not any regular rain cloud out there!"

Saying this, Jack went out into the hall and slammed Danny's room's door shut. Danny and his friends could hear Jack open the door on the other side of their wall and walk into the room behind that door.

"You think?" Danny asked in a smart-aleck tone in response to his dad's last comment. He turned back to Sam and Tucker, standing a few feet away from him.

"Well guys, any thoughts on how we could get rid of that cloud?" Danny asked.

Sam didn't say anything, she just shook her head. Tucker was the first one to speak up with an idea.

"I know!" he yelled. "How about we do some research to see if there's any record of anything like this happening before?"

"Great idea," Sam said with no emotion. "And just where are we supposed to do research? There aren't any libraries around here or anything!"

"No, but we do have this," Tucker said, going over to his bag. He started pulling out all his techno-geek stuff until he finally found what he was looking for. "Aha! Here it is!"

Tucker pulled out a think gray box. He opened up the top of it, and Sam and Danny realized what it was.

"A laptop!" Danny and Sam said loudly together.

"Yeah, haven't you even seen one before?" Tucker asked as he started his computer up.

"So not only were you keeping a Playstation from us but you were also hiding a laptop, too?" Danny asked, annoyed that they could've been playing some computer games instead of Playstation ones.

"Not only that, but it's internet-ready, too!" Tucker said, not understanding Danny and Sam's annoyance with him keeping the laptop secret.

Sam and Danny hid their frustration as they ran over to the computer. Tucker logged onto Google, but then stopped, not knowing what to type in.

"Uh, guys…what do you think I should enter for a search?" Tucker asked.

Danny and Sam had no idea what Tucker should put in. They suggested "Dark Cloud", "Evil Cloud", "Ghost Cloud", "Cursed Cloud" and just about any other thing that had the word "cloud" in it that would describe the mysterious thing in the sky.

After almost an hour of searching, all three kids came up empty. There wasn't one thing that they found that could tell them anything about the black cloud that was hovering in the sky (not that they were expecting much anyway).

"Well, this is just great," Danny said out of frustration. "My ghost powers are probably the only thing around here that could possibly blow that thing away, and not even _those_ seemed to hurt it at all."

"Well, you think a _person_ would have any useful info?" Sam asked, just doing her best to try to put a thought in.

"Well, I don't think that'll help," Danny said. "But I guess it's the only thing we have right now. Why don't we three go out on the streets and ask anyone about the cloud who we think would have some useful information about the cloud?"

Sam and Tucker agreed to it. In less than a minute, they ran out of their hotel room and were down on the streets.

"All right, split up!" Danny commanded Sam and Tucker. Danny pointed in one direction and told Tucker to go look that way; he pointed in the opposite direction and gave Sam the same commands. After his two friends split up, Danny ran behind the hotel out of sight and became his ghostly alter-ego, Danny Phantom.

When Danny did this, he began soaring in the air at over one hundred miles an hour, creating an awe-inspiring sight to everyone around him. He flew higher and higher until he was literally hundreds of feet in the air. He started flying around the entire resort area, but it was strangely deserted. Supposedly, a lot of people stayed inside so they could keep safe from the black cloud, whatever it was. Danny was amazed, seeing the once packed beach deserted. Now, he could clearly see the white sand and the water was undisturbed except for the waves. It seemed pretty creepy to him.

Danny had to quickly get his mind off staring at the deserted beach and instead start looking around for anyone who might have any idea what it was. Presumably, that would mean he'd have to see if anyone crazy enough to be standing outside would have any idea on how to stop the cloud or to destroy it.

As Danny was flying across the now deserted looking resort that was once so lively, he found less people standing outside than he thought. In fact, the only people standing outside were people taking pictures or staring at in awe simply because they had never seen anything like it before; Danny knew he would not be able to get help from any of those people.

When Danny was a good half-mile from the cloud but still soaring from the air, he had just about given up hope of finding anyone who could prove useful in determining a weak spot in the cloud.

Suddenly, Danny looked at the cloud and saw something. He couldn't tell what the cloud was doing, but it was definitely doing something. It seemed to have some kind of weird energy brewing up in it and looked like it was ready to unleash it at any moment. Danny began flying through the air so fast he was almost getting dizzy just watching everything go by around him as the cloud became bigger and bigger when he approached it.

Danny was beginning to hear people screaming as he got closer, and he honestly couldn't blame them; he would be pretty frightened too if something like that was getting ready to unleash energy or whatever it was about to do. When Danny was only a few yards away from the crowd, he looked down and saw one person standing right under the dark cloud as it looked ready to unleash energy. Having to think on his feet to knock the person standing out of the way, Danny just swooped down and impacted the person as hard as he could. The guy got knocked out cold as Danny hit him, but only for a few moments. Danny took this opportunity to change back into his human half as the guy was regaining consciousness.

As the person began to wake up and Danny finished transforming, a shocking revelation came to Danny when he saw the person's face; he knew who the person was.

"Dr. Skyler!" Danny said full of shock when he saw the person get up.

Indeed it was Dr. Skyler, the scientist who Danny saw at the presentation at the museum Jazz forced them to see the day before. Danny was nervous, but he was also confused as to why Dr. Skyler would want to be around the curse when it was about to release energy.

Skyler made a few grunting sounds as he got up, and the first thing he could see clearly when he regained consciousness was Danny's confused and angry look on his face.

"Okay, you got ten seconds to tell me what exactly you were doing under that cloud!" Danny sternly said as he helped Skyler get to his feet. "That thing looked like it was about to do something really bad, and you were just standing right under it as if it were a regular cloud!"

Skyler seemed annoyed, but also insulted at this. He didn't like the idea of a teenaged boy telling him what he should have been doing.

"Who are you to tell me what's dangerous?" Skyler retorted as he fully regained balance. "What is the matter with you! Nothing was going on!"

"Are you blind or something!" Danny yelled angrily. "That thing looked like it was ready to release some…energy, or something, and you were just standing there like nothing was going to happen. That was a pretty dumb thing to do, _especially_ for an Oxford and Harvard grad."

Skyler just got more annoyed at this comment. "How do you know that something bad was about to happen from that cloud? You don't even know what it is!"

"Oh, and I suppose you do!" Danny said with frustration mounting in his voice.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I do," Skyler calmly replied.

Danny was quite taken back by this. Was it really possible for this Skyler guy to know what the cloud was? Danny had no idea what it was, his parents had no idea what it was, and his friends had no idea what it was. (and they were all pretty knowledgeable about stuff like that) How could Skyler know when he's supposed to be an expert on human anatomy and biology?

"Really, then!" Danny challenged. "Then what is it?"

"It's Bhyrun," Skyler calmly responded.


	7. Surprise Lessons

"Bhyrun?" Danny asked with confusion in his voice. "What are you talking about?"

Skyler started smiling as he stared at Danny. His short brown hair was blowing softly in the wind with a disturbing silence.

"You don't know what I'm talking about, do you?" Skyler softly said as he and Danny continued to stare at each other. "Come to my lab with me, I'll tell you all about it there."

The walk was only a few minutes. People were staring at Skyler and Danny as they walked along the almost-empty sidewalks, not knowing what the two were doing together. The entire walk was silent; Skyler had nothing to say, but Danny wasn't sure he wanted to say anything at all.

Skyler's lab was a decently sized building. It had a white exterior, but inside it looked very scientific. The floors were carpeted with several doors all over the place, along with huge glass windows inside and outside the laboratory. After a winding and confusing walk through the building, Skyler reached his office.

Skyler's office looked like a regular office. It had a desk, a very high-tech computer, and a lot of scientific equipment like a microscope or test tubes in it. There was also a chair in the corner of the room, where Skyler gestured Danny to sit once they walked into the office.

Feeling very nervous and slightly uncomfortable, Danny agreed to sit down in the chair in the corner of the office while Skyler sat down in the chair at his computer. Skyler started rocking back and forth in the chair while he crossed his hands and rested them on his stomach.

"So, you don't know what Bhyrun is?" Skyler asked with a smile on his face.

"N…no," Danny replied, not knowing what to say.

"Well, when I first saw that cloud pop up into the air last night," Skyler said, wiping the smile off his face. "I was curious of it, of course. So, I decided to do a little research on the cloud and its origins. And I found some very startling information."

Danny gained some interest with those words. Maybe this Skyler guy _actually_ had knowledge of the cloud in the sky?

"Well, to answer your question," Skyler said, "that cloud that popped up last night…it wasn't a cloud."

"It's not?" Danny asked. "If it's not a cloud, then what is it?"

"It's a curse," Skyler calmly replied. "A curse that, according to my research, goes back centuries."

"What are you talking about?" Danny asked. "Are you sure the stuff you found in your research is talking about the same thing that's hovering in the sky as we speak?"

"Yes," Skyler replied. "I told you, that cloud is actually a curse. It goes back a long time. A long, _long_ time."

"What are you talking about?" Danny said. "You're confusing me!"

Skyler ignored Danny's complaints and continued talking. "In the year 1368, there were these two mages: Nouron and Bhyrun. Both of these mages were extremely powerful, and as the story goes, they even had special powers."

"What does that have to do with the cloud, or curse, or whatever?" Danny interrupted, losing his patience as Skyler kept talking.

Skyler put his finger right next to his mouth and pretended he was zipping his mouth up, telling Danny to keep quiet. Danny just sunk back in his chair with his arms crossed.

"As I was saying," Skyler continued, "Bhyrun started getting a little _too_ fond of his power. He stopped using his power to protect people, and instead started using them for his personal wants, like revenge. It wasn't soon before Bhyrun was on the verge of domination and power. Everyone was nervous, especially Nouron, so he did the only thing he could: he cast his strongest magic on Bhyrun, inflicting a dark curse on him. The curse is what transformed him into that cloud that is hovering in the sky. So, now you know why that's Bhyrun."

Danny was confused, but now he was also irritable. "Did your research involve reading from fairy tale books, because that is sure-as-heck what it sounds like."

"You don't believe me?" Skyler asked, but didn't seem too angry. "How else could you explain that black cloud being unleashed out of nowhere?"

Danny moaned. He wasn't sure what to believe now. While he thought the reason had to be much more logical than what Skyler said, it was the only thing he had now.

"Uh…okay," Danny finally said. "I don't really get it, but if that's why you think that cloud is in the sky, then go ahead and think it."

Skyler didn't say anything. He just continued to slump back into his chair, until finally saying. "All right, kid, you can go now. By the way, I never got your name."

"Danny," Danny replied, quickly getting out of his chair.

"Well, Danny, why don't you go home and let the police decide what to do about this? I think it's better off if you don't go getting yourself involved. Besides, there's a machine I need to get out now, anyway."

Danny seemed to get angry at the remark about not getting involved, but didn't show it. Without saying anything, he quickly nodded his head to Skyler and walked out of the room. Walking at a very fast pace, Danny made his way out of the laboratory and ran behind to the back of the building once he was outside.

When Danny was behind the building and out of everyone's sight, he turned into his alter-ego and started flying through the air to save himself the trouble of walking all the way back to his hotel.

While he was flying through the air and feeling the wind in his face, Danny couldn't help but think of Skyler's words; they practically disturbed him.

_I think it's better off if you don't go getting yourself involved,_ Danny thought to himself as those words played in his mind. _Why not? I'm probably the only thing around here that has the slightest chance of destroying that thing! If I don't destroy it, who will? That guy certainly doesn't think he can destroy it on his own…_

In a matter of minutes, Danny saw his hotel. Even at the sunniest time of the day, everyone was still staying inside or hiding to avoid getting close or being outside with that giant cloud. The entire place just seemed so creepy, but Danny didn't let it bother him.

Danny flew behind the hotel and changed back into his human form. He then ran around to the front of the building and ran in through the revolving door and into the elevator. He hit the button to his floor, and as soon as the doors opened, Danny started quickly walking through the deserted hall to his room. He put the key card in the slot, and opened the door when the light flashed green.

Danny walked inside and saw Sam and Tucker nervously looking around. When they saw Danny in the door, they were overjoyed.

"Where were you!" Sam yelled. "Do you have any idea how worried Tucker and I were for you?"

"Don't be worried, guys," Danny said, trying to reassure them. "You remember that Skyler guy who we saw at the museum yesterday?"

Tucker and Sam nodded their heads.

"Well, I pushed him out of the way just as that cloud out there was about to do something really, _really _bad, and…"

"What was it about to do?" Tucker interrupted.

"Let me finish!" Danny yelled, throwing his arms in the air. "Anyway, after I saved his life and not getting a single 'thanks', Skyler wanted to take me to his lab and tell me about that cloud. He thought he had a pretty good idea about what it was."

"Really?" Sam said with a hint of surprise in her voice. "What he say?"

"He thinks the cloud is actually a curse or something from 1368," Danny replied. "He told me there were these two priests or something named Nouron and Bhyrun and the dark cloud up in the sky is actually Bhyrun."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Tucker yelled, putting both of his hands in front of his face. "I'm confused now. Who are these two guys again?"

"Skyler told me they both had powers and that Bhyrun went a little over the edge with his. Apparently that Nouron dude did something about it and turned Bhyrun into that cloud."

"Well, how does that explain the bottle and opening it?" Sam asked.

"It doesn't," Danny replied. "Look, to get a better understanding of it, why don't we do a little bit of the research ourselves? Tucker, upload your laptop and enter in the names 'Nouron' and 'Bhyrun' under a search engine."

Tucker wasted no time. He loaded up his laptop and searched the two names Danny told him to. It wasn't long before they found something.

Tucker and Sam started reading it while Danny stood from a distance with his arms crossed, waiting for them to get some results.

"Danny! We found something!" Tucker yelled excitedly, waving his hand and telling Danny to come over.

"We found out some more about those two dudes," Sam added on, turning away from the computer to look at Danny. "And it looks like your scientist friend was wrong."


	8. More Info

"What do you mean he was wrong?" Danny asked as he walked over to the computer where Sam and Tucker typed.

"Well, according to this website," Sam started, "it doesn't sound like Neuron and Bhyrun were ever really great friends."

"What does the site say?" Danny asked curiously.

"It says that Nouron was someone who battled the supernatural," Tucker replied. "And it sounds like that Bhyrun guy wanted to control anything supernatural or great."

Danny smirked and let some stiff air blow from his mouth. "Good thing that guy isn't alive today, or else he would have my butt."

"I wouldn't be so sure about the not being alive today," Sam said, not taking her eyes off the computer screen.

Danny's heart skipped a beat. "What do you mean?"

"Well," Tucker said, "it looks like those two mage guys disagreed to the extent where they fought each other."

Danny laughed at the idea of two people who were supposed to be wise and peaceful were fighting each other, but then a question struck in his mind that made him feel more tense and worried.

"Who won the fight?" Danny desperately asked.

"From the looks of it, it sounds like that Nouron guy won," Tucker said, passing quick glances to Danny as he read what was on the screen.

"That was the good guy, right?" Danny nervously asked as he looked at Tucker and Sam. Luckily for him, both of them nodded their heads. Danny felt himself breathe a huge sigh of relief, knowing that if the good guy won, then he wouldn't have much to worry about.

"Wait, there's more!" Tucker said as he continued studying the screen carefully and took in each and every single individual word. "Well, it looks like by winning the fight against that Bhyrun crackpot, Nouron prevented Bhyrun from doing anything that would prove especially dangerous or stupid."

"How exactly does this prove Skyler wrong?" Danny asked, not knowing what Sam and Tucker were getting at.

"It doesn't look like Nouron could keep Bhyrun contained for long," Sam said, adding onto what Tucker had just mentioned. "The site says that Bhyrun was extremely hateful and that he swore he would get revenge."

"How?" Danny said, not completely sure he understood everything Sam was saying.

"We don't know, either," Sam admitted. "But the site says that, and it looks like it's our only lead right now. Anyway, Bhyrun swore he would get revenge and said that he would get stronger until the time came for him to be back."

"I have no idea who got the idea to nominate him for mage-hood," Danny said, "he sounds like a maniac to me."

"Same here," Tucker said. "But Sam and I are pretty sure you opening that bottle had something to do with this entire thing."

Danny seemed to get very offended by that remark. _"ME_ open that bottle!" he raged. "Maybe you forgot, I didn't 'open' it, that Toby kid who I was babysitting found it in my pocket and accidentally broke it, which FYI wouldn't have happened if _you_ just minded your own business and kept it in the lifeguard tower like I told you!" Danny yelled, pointing his finger at Tucker.

Tucker put an upset expression on his face, but kept his mouth quiet. Before Danny even started to say more, Sam jumped in.

"Look guys," she said, trying to keep the peace. "We don't even know that the bottle opening and that weird cloud appearing in the sky are connected. It _could_ just be a coincidence, you know."

"A coincidence?" Danny asked. "Yeah, right. Just like how it's a coincidence when the bottle broke that the wind started picking up _inside_ Toby's house and that massive lightning storm started that exact moment."

Sam didn't care too much for Danny's sarcastic remarks, but she continued to try to keep the peace.

"Just to remind you, we don't even know that Bhyrun is the name for that cloud or anything like that," she said, trying to keep the explanation logical. "Maybe Skyler just mixed up that cloud with some folklore legend?"

"I don't know…" Tucker said. "I still think it seems way too coincidental."

Sam was upset that neither Danny nor Tucker wanted to go along with an explanation that actually made sense. Was it really possible that Skyler was sending Danny and his friends on a wild goose chase? If he was, why would he even want to do it? And if he was serious, then how could he know all this stuff and be so sure about it?

"I'm still going with the ghost parts," Danny stubbornly said after an awkward silence. "That bottle opening must have started a revival, or something like that, because there have been way too many coincidences for this to just be a few rare events lined up at the same time."

"Danny, don't worry about it," Sam said. "If that cloud is really nothing more than some old guy's spirit or something like, you could pound him in two seconds flat. Besides, you're supposed to be on vacation. Why don't you just enjoy it?"

Danny thought about it for a while, then a slight smile started to spread across his face. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

Just as Danny was ready to forget about the entire thing, Tucker interjected full of energy.

"Guys, maybe we _can_ stop that cloud!" he yelled excitedly. "There are instructions on this website that date back to the time Nouron was fighting Bhyrun! I think if we follow these directions, we should be able to blow that dark cloud away and lock it in a bottle again!"

"Really?" Danny asked. He wasn't too thrilled about the idea of only being able to lock the cloud away until someone else opened it, but at least it would lock the cloud away. "What does it say?"

"It says…"

Just as Tucker was ready to read the directions, a firing sound was heard. It sounded like a laser from a science fiction movie, and it came blasting right through the window to the kids' room. The blast narrowly missed Danny, Sam and Tucker, but they got the feeling the blast wasn't aiming for them.

The kids were knocked to the ground as rubble, smoke and dust clouded their view. When they could finally see again, they saw that the laptop was hit with the blast and was now nothing more than a pile of plastic.

As Danny and his friends slowly limped up, they saw that the window to their hotel room was smashed. When the dust and smoke cleared, the three kids saw the dark cloud right outside their window. It installed a massive amount of fear in all of them, seeing that dastardly black cloud a mere few yards away from them.

Just as the three were beginning to back away, a laser fired from the curse and burned a black patch right into the carpet. Danny, Tucker and Sam gasped when they saw that the curse was armed.

"Great…laser blasts," Danny mumbled. "Guys, I think we've got ourselves a cloud with a 'tude."

Tucker and Sam continued to back away, but Danny stood his ground as the cloud seemed to get closer to the window. (even though in reality it was just hovering in the air a few feet from the window)

"Danny, what are you doing!" the Goth girl screamed in fear as she saw Danny just standing there as he practically welcomed an attack.

Danny ran right over to the smashed window with his fingers balled into a fist of fury. His teeth were grit and his eyes showed more determination than a closing pitcher in a World Series game.

"You can just pop up and scare everyone into their houses or hotels," Danny yelled (actually) to the cloud with a furious tone, "but when you start firing lasers into my hotel room and destroy my one way to see if I got an e-mail, _that's_ when I get mad!"

Danny's heart rate was pumping faster than he could ever remember it. He _had_ to do something about the cloud before it destroyed the entire city with its laser beam, as well as any other powers it might have. There was no backing down now. Danny was extremely frightened about what he was doing, but he was too focused on actually destroying the cloud to actually notice his fear.

"You need to be taught a lesson in respect! Get ready!" Danny yelled at the cloud.


	9. Fighting the Cloud I

Before Sam or Tucker even had time to respond to Danny's sudden burst, two white circles formed around Danny's mid section and started going in opposite directions. In no time, he turned into his phantom form and immediately flew out of the window with blinding speed and jumped to the backside of the dark cloud.

Even though the cloud itself was supposedly "not-living", it seemed to get surprised with Danny's abrupt change of speed (and form) and his new abilities. However, the cloud took no time just oozing away from the door.

Despite not having any eyes or anything that would enable the cloud to actually see anything, Danny could tell the cloud was looking at him. Suddenly, a bright green laser blast was sent flying from a spot in the cloud and Danny had to rely entirely on reflex to dodge it.

After the cloud tried to blast Danny, Danny had his turn. He fired some ectoplasmic energy at the cloud, only to remember that his blasts couldn't penetrate it. He thought he'd give it a try, but just as he remembered, the cloud didn't seem to be affected by it.

Danny moaned angrily as he saw none of his attacks worked on the cloud at all. Danny resorted to just flying away from the cloud and towards the center of the resort area. Any people who were out were gasping and screaming at the sight of the ghost boy and a giant cloud fighting less than a hundred yards above them.

As Danny and the cloud exchanged blasts, Danny continued to dodge them while the cloud continued to absorb them. Finally, Danny realized that if he would lose, because he couldn't keep up with his fast reflexes forever. In no time, he would become exhausted and be at a _huge_ disadvantage.

As Danny and the cloud continued flying forward and forward taking or dodging blasts, Danny's face showed a clear side of exhaustion. His green eyes seemed to lose a lot of their luster and his white hair was starting to look pretty messy. It seemed with every attempt the cloud made to hit Danny with the blast, the harder it was for Danny to actually dodge it. That was when Danny realized he had one last trick up his sleeve that he hoped would send the cloud flying away.

Danny immediately took in a deep breath and prepared to let it out in one devastating amount that Danny was sure not even that cloud could handle. It was the Ghostly Wail, the move Danny always relied on for a tight situation.

Unfortunately for Danny, this situation was now _too_ tight; he was surrounded by buildings and civilians. If he were to unleash his Ghostly Wail, he would no doubt destroy the buildings and probably kill everyone around. Not only would that make him a menace to the resort, but he would also be a murderer.

Danny deflated when he realized that he shouldn't use his Ghostly Wail, but he was then lucky enough to think of yet _another_ last resort.

"This better work…" Danny moaned to himself as he stared at the cloud as it prepared to fire at him again. "I've been practicing this for a long time, I hope I finally got it…"

Danny closed his eyes and tried his best to focus all his energy and concentrated hard on splitting it. He was hoping to finally be able to duplicate himself. Unfortunately, as always, he was only able to get about half of it out. Most noticeably, he was only able to sprout a second head in the process.

Danny gave up trying when he saw that not only his trick wouldn't work, but also when he saw that the cloud was ready to attack again.

"So, you still wanna fight, huh?" Danny said to the cloud as he dodged another blast. He knew he couldn't take much more, so he decided to just start flying away from the cloud and hope to attack the cloud from a hidden location. That way, maybe he could find a spot where the cloud would be open to attack.

As Danny began flying away, he noticed something very odd in the streets. At a nearly deserted intersection, he saw a machine that had something attached to it. The attachment appeared to be some giant laser seen in movies, with a giant container behind it that was clear but had nothing in it. And there even seemed to be a person standing right by the mysterious device. Danny gasped when he saw who it was. (you might have guessed…"

"Skyler!" Danny yelled when he saw Skyler standing behind the machine with the giant cloud approaching in dangerous pursuit. "When will that guy just stay inside like everyone else? Saving him is going to get more annoying than a troll on the gamefaqs message boards!"

Before Danny could do anything else, Danny saw Skyler turn towards him. Skyler seemed unusually delighted to see Danny (although he didn't know it was Danny-he thought it was just a ghost). Skyler pointed to Danny and yelled, "You there, ghost boy! Come down here, I want you to do a favor for me!"

"I already saved your life once, what else do you want me to do?" Danny mumbled to himself as he flew downwards toward Skyler. When he landed right next to Skyler at the deserted intersection, he crossed his arms and stared at him.

Before Danny could say anything, Skyler jumped in and yelled, "I want you to distract that cloud and get it over here! That way, I can charge up this laser and fire it at that giant cloud!"

"_That must be the machine Skyler said he had to get when I talked to him a little while ago,"_ Danny thought to himself. Before he agreed to do what Skyler wanted, Danny wanted to know what it was exactly that Skyler wanted to get done. "Why! Why do you want me to get that thing over here?"

"You see this laser right here?" Skyler said, pointing to the large device he and Danny were standing next to?

"_How could I miss it?"_

"I want you to distract that cloud and bring it over here!"

"What?" Danny shrieked. "You want me to put my life on the line just so you can fire an ineffective laser at that!"

"You're a ghost! You're already dead, aren't you?"

Danny grit his teeth and clenched his hand into a fist. Not knowing what else to say, he did as Skyler asked. He flew into the air and screamed, "Hey, you big stupid thing! I'm right here? Want to engulf me and keep me inside that black gooey surface tension till I rot?"

The cloud obviously didn't seem to have any effect, but the cloud started steering towards Danny anyway. Danny's green eyes widened in fear as he saw the intimidating black, swirling pile of vapor slowly ooze toward him. Suddenly, without warning, the cloud fired a green laser at Danny.

Danny went intangible just in time as the dense green light phased right through him. Danny went tangible again and kept trying to lead it closer and closer to Skyler. Finally, Skyler yelled, "Move out of the way!"

Danny turned around and saw Skyler violently waving his hand, signaling Danny to get away from the dark cloud A.S.A.P.

When Danny soared out of the way, Skyler screamed, "Hold on!" He pushed a button on the machine and it started roaring. Just then, Danny mumbled something to himself in midair.

"Oh no, does Skyler _really_ know what he's doing? What if that laser thing ends up blowing the cloud up and it splatters everywhere? Or something else like that?"

Danny's eyes widened in hope that Skyler wasn't about to go destroying the cloud and causing a huge problem. His heart stopped beating when he saw a giant, deep green light come flying out of the cannon of the laser.

Danny watched as the laser hit a patch of the giant black cloud. A mixture of green and black started swirling around at the point of the laser's impact on the cloud, and that part of the cloud even seemed to start melting. As the "gooified" part of the cloud became clearer, it actually started traveling _down_ the laser and back towards Skyler on the ground.

Floating from the air, Danny almost wanted to look away. As the mixture of gaseous and liquid material from the cloud started floating down on top of the laser towards Skyler, Danny wanted nothing more than to smash the entire machine so no one around would get hurt. But fear and complete shock in seeing a cloud use a laser beam to come down the same way a magnetic train would move along the tracks took away all his reflexes, temporarily.

When the cloud finally hit the bottom of the laser beam, it actually seemed to get sucked _inside_ the laser cannon. Danny didn't know what Skyler wanted to do, but Skyler seemed to be getting very excited about what was happening.

Danny, even though he was pretty high above the ground, could see the once empty container behind the laser began filling up. It was filling up the black, gaseous looking substance that was making up the cloud. Danny watched with his mouth wide open as the container continued filling up.

When the container was just about full of the gas, Skyler slammed a button down on the machine and the laser instantly disappeared as he hit it. Skyler turned the laser off and now had an entire container full of the mysterious material that made up the menacing cloud.

Skyler began snickering to himself as he began wheeling the laser off, never taking his eyes off the container. Danny watched in silent fear as Skyler began walking away from the cloud as if he had done nothing.

"Okay, something is _really_ not right here," Danny said. He began swooping down towards the ground and quietly started following Skyler as he took the laser away from the streets. It wasn't long before Danny saw where Skyler was taking the laser: to his lab.

Danny continued to quietly pursuit Skyler until they reached the laboratory. Danny went intangible and went through all the walls and doors that Skyler did without being noticed.

Skyler finally reached the end of the hall to a giant experimenting room. Danny went in, and he almost passed out just from walking in, having to smell chemicals still floating around in the air from past experiments.

The room had a _lot_ of shelves lying against the walls with literally hundreds of chemical bottles or samples on them. There was a lot of computer equipment for studying or for analyzing. Danny stared as he saw all the hi-tech equipment; he had never seen anything like it before.

Skyler's footsteps echoed as he walked over the tiled floor while taking the container of the cloud specimen from the laser over to a table in the center of the room. He gently set the container down on the table, and then quickly started walking to a drawer over by the shelves. He pulled out what looked like empty vaccines-the kind doctors give when they give a patient a shot.

Danny was very worried about what Skyler was going to do with the empty needles, since that's all that he seemed to be getting. Just as he walked back to the table, Danny made himself tangible again, therefore making him clearly visible.

"And just what do you think you're doing, doctor Skyler?" Danny asked in an interrogative manner.

Skyler almost dropped all of the needles due to surprise. As soon as he saw it was Danny, he seemed relieved but very annoyed.

"What are you doing here?" Skyler replied, not answering Danny's question.

"Why did you want me to distract that giant cloud so you could fire the laser at it?" Danny demanded. "And is that _really_ some stuff from the cloud in that container?" Danny pointed to the sealed container of swirling black gas Skyler had placed on the table.

"Yes, that is an actual specimen of the cloud," Skyler answered. "And firing that laser at it helped me get that sample."

"Why would you want a sample of that thing, anyway?" Danny said, not really understanding Skyler's intentions.

"Well, that cloud obviously cannot be destroyed by anything we know of so far," Skyler said. "I hope that by studying this sample of the cloud's gases, I can find a reactant to it that will cause it to pop…like a big balloon."

"You don't need to put it in little-kid-words, I can understand it fine. So, you wanted me to risk my life just so you could collect a sample and study it, hoping that you could find some weakness or anything like that in that giant cloud?"

"Exactly!"

Danny still didn't like where Skyler was taking this, but he didn't think he had a choice. Danny went intangible and flew through the roof and outside. He began flying away and back towards his hotel. As he flew away, he looked back at the lab and said, "I'll be watching you."


	10. Jack Lends a Hand

Danny was flying back to the hotel for a while, not knowing where else to go. He wanted to tell Sam and Tucker what Skyler was trying to do so they could have some input on what to do. Danny hoped that, for some reason, the two figured out how Danny could destroy the cloud.

Sadly for him, they were still empty. Their hotel room had just been changed due to the blast the cloud sent into the room. While Danny and his friends were now in a different room (but still a fairly short distance from Danny's parents), all of them were still nervous. There was nothing to say the cloud wouldn't come back and destroy another room and possibly kill them.

Danny went intangible and flew back into his new room. Sam and Tucker had just gotten back from trying to find anyone who could help them bring down the cloud, but neither one of them got anyone willing to help. (heck, they had a hard enough time just finding somebody in the streets, never mind finding someone willing to take down a terror to society)

Danny deflated with disappointment. His sat down on a chair in the corner of the room and rested his head in the open palm of his right hand. He was upset that the three of them just searched and came up with nothing.

"Guys, the only lead I have right now is that Skyler dude who we saw at the museum a few days ago when Jazz forced us," Danny said after a long silence.

Tucker and Sam turned towards him. Sam walked over and immediately asked, "Where does Skyler come into all this? How'd he get involved?"

"Skyler had this giant contraption or laser or something," Danny started as he lifted his head out of his hand and making eye contact with his two friends. "He was able to get a sample from the cloud, and he said he would study it so he could hopefully find out what we can do to get rid of it."

"I don't know," Tucker said. "Skyler said he was a master in Human Biology. How will that help him try to figure out how to blow up a cloud or something like that?"

"_That's_ what you're worried about?" Danny asked, his voice heightening with surprise. "I'm worried the guy's going to hurt himself or somebody else if he tries experimenting and gets too close to that cloud."

The three of them were quiet until Jack burst into the room with a look of panic on his face. "Where's Danny?" he asked. "Tucker! Sam! Is Danny back from the bathroom? I told him not to go to the one outside. If he did, that blasted cloud got him and it'll be all my…"

"Dad?" Danny asked, weakly raising his hand and waving it. "I'm right here."

Jack deflated. "Of course you are!" he said triumphantly.

Danny thought his dad might want to know about Skyler and what he was doing. If Jack wanted to, he could break Skyler in half with little effort. But if Danny were to tell his dad that he was in a science lab with Skyler, then Jack would want to know how Danny got there, and he'd definitely have a hard time explaining.

"Danny, listen, you know that huge cloud out there?" Jack asked, looking very nervous.

"It's kind of hard to miss," Danny snidely replied.

"Well, you and I are going out there right now as a Fenton-double-team!" Jack yelled. "You and I are getting in that RV to destroy that cloud! I'll drive it while you can operate the heavy laser cannon and blow that thing to smithereens!"

"But dad, the RV isn't…"

"No time for that now, Danny! Let's go! We've got a cloud to destroy! It's time we finish that thing off once and for all!"

Saying this, Jack ran out of the hotel room and started thundering his way down the long halls, causing the small candle-like lights on the walls to start vibrating. Danny sighed, then followed Jack.

When both of them were on the bottom floor, Jack galloped over to the revolving door and ran through it. Danny covered his face in embarrassment as he followed his dad out to the RV.

When both of them had jumped into the car, Jack yelled, "All right! Let's show that hunk of dark vapor what happens when you mess with the Fentons!"

"But dad, don't you remember? The RV?..."

"Never mind, Danny!" Jack yelled, ignoring everything Danny just said. "We're going!"

Danny's dad slammed his foot down on the gas pedal, and before Danny could even breathe, the car was flying backwards (but not with out smashing into other cars, of course) and Jack seemed to have no control.

Finally, Jack swerved onto the road and starting speeding down it. Jack was able to cross the white line down the middle of the road with ease, due to the road being almost completely deserted.

In no time, Jack had positioned the RV right under the giant cloud. He stopped the vehicle and slammed a button down on the control panel. Jack was expecting to hear a giant laser pop out from the roof of the RV, but nothing happened.

"What!" Jack yelled. "Why in the name of ice cream sandwiches won't that laser pop out!"

"Uh…dad?" Danny asked. "Jazz had you deactivate the laser before we left. This was supposed to be a 'ghost hunting free' vacation. Remember?"

Jack stared with open eyes, and then started pounding his hand on the steering wheel.

"Gah! Why did Jazz have to tell me not to bring any equipment! WHY! WHY! WHY!"

Jack was pounding on the steering wheel with his fist in the same rhythm of screaming 'WHY'. Danny covered his eyes in his hands as Jack continued losing his temper.

Suddenly, both of them were snapped awake when a loud blasting sound was heard. Danny and Jack both screamed as they felt the RV and themselves get thrown into the air. They landed on the ground with a hard thud, and if it wasn't for their seatbelts, they'd be bouncing around the place. As the RV landed back on the ground, they saw a giant pothole in the road that wasn't there before.

"It's that cloud!" Danny yelled. "That cloud just fired a laser at us! Dad, step on the gas and get us away from that thing!"

Jack didn't say anything; he just slammed his foot down and got launched back into his seat as the four-ton RV jolted into motion. Jack swerved desperately, trying to dodge all of the laser blasts the cloud was sending down at them.

"Sweet mother of those little white things you find in oysters!" Jack yelled. "That cloud is _dangerous!_"

"You think?"

Jack continued making his way around the cloud, and somehow he managed to narrowly escape all of the laser blasts the cloud sent down at them.

As they were driving around once the cloud had stopped blasting at them, Danny and Jack were breathing heavily. Both of them were thankful to be alive.

"And I thought I would never fulfill my life long dream…" Jack said as he continued breathing heavily as he pressed himself up against the seat of his RV, which had just come to a complete stop. "I thought I would never play the bagpipes."

"Please, stop, you're ripping out my heartstrings," Danny said in a sarcastic, non-caring way. Then, something caught his attention when he was lying back, trying to catch his breath from what happened.

Inside a building, there were bright lights seen flashing, and something appeared to be wrong. Then, a figure walked by the window. Danny noticed who the figure was immediately: Skyler.

"That guy is definitely doing something I think I should know about…" Danny thought to himself as he stared into the window. As Danny was sitting down, he looked at a street sign. "'Cup Street'? Danny asked. "I'll have to make a mental note of this place just in case I ever need to come back here."


	11. Breaking In

Danny stared in wonder and confusion as he saw Skyler trotting through the laboratory. Even though Danny could only see Skyler through a window from the Fenton RV, Danny could tell Skyler was doing something important.

When Jack was feeling secure enough to start driving around again (after nearly costing him and Danny their lives when the cloud started attacking), he drove himself and Danny back to the hotel. The road was completely empty, and it looked very creepy. Danny and Jack were almost disturbed to see no cars were outside on the road. (in fact, they _would_ be disturbed if they didn't know why the roads were empty.)

When they were finally back at the hotel, they both took their time walking back to their room. Jack reached his room and put the key card in the slot, unlocking the door and letting him in. Danny continued to walk down the silent, red carpeted hall to his own room. Once he put the card in the slot, he walked in. Once again, Sam and Tucker were relieved to see him.

"Danny! Did you do anything to hurt that cloud?" Tucker asked, walking over to Danny by the door.

"No, but the cloud almost hurt _me_," Danny said. "I'm lucky to be alive right now."

"What happened?" Sam asked, having a higher-than-normal amount of fear and concern in her voice. She quickly walked over to Danny as well.

Danny told his two friends the story of how the cloud was firing lasers down at them and almost turned the Fenton RV into a pile of waste. Danny shuddered at the thought of having to go outside again with that thing.

"Guys, there's something I want you to do," Danny said in a desperate way. His blue eyes began to widen, and Sam and Tucker knew he was being completely serious. "You remember that Skyler guy who told me about Nouron and Byhrun?"

"Wasn't he the same guy who did that show at the museum?" Tucker butted in.

"Yes," Danny replied calmly. "Look, I really think he's doing something weird. I have no idea what it is, but I'm pretty sure it's something I should know about!"

"That's great and all," Sam said depressingly, "but what do you want us to do?"

Danny paused for a moment. He closed his eyes and pointed his head down at the floor. After a second or two, he lifted his head up, opened his eyes and squeaked out, "I want you to help me get into Skyler's lab tonight."

Sam and Tucker's eyes widened and their mouths dropped.

"Wait a minute!" Sam yelled, "You want _us_ to go leave our room…at night…go onto the streets…with that cloud up there…to break into…a science lab?" Sam asked, making sure she had everything clear.

"Yeah," Danny admitted. "Look, I know it's risky and it's asking a lot, but I think that Sklyer guy is really up to no good. Or at least he's doing something I should know about."

Sam and Tucker were silent. They stared at each other and gave a "what-do-you-think" look. They were quiet for a while as Danny nervously watched them silently converse with each other whether or not they were willing to go out onto the streets at night to break into a science lab.

"I'll go," Sam finally said, slightly blushing. "I mean, I'm only going because you're my friend…and friends gotta look out for each other, right?"

"Err...right!" Danny said, a smile forming on his face as he made a triumphant fist in midair.

"Wait!" Tucker yelled. "If Sam's going, I'm going!" Tucker made a thumbs-up and pointed it at himself. "You've saved our butts quite a few times; I think it's time we helped you now."

Danny was smiling and his face lit up with delight. "Thanks, guys," Danny said. "I'm sorry I'm making you go through with this. If I could duplicate myself and send my copies in there instead of having you risk your lives, I would. But, I don't have that power, so…"

"Don't worry about it," Tucker beamed. "Besides, this was going to be a boring night anyway, especially since the beach is practically closed and there are no girls to hang out with."

"All right!" Danny said. "It should be nightfall in about three hours. Let's get ready then and wait a while before going out."

"Wait, what do we need to do to get ready?" Sam asked.

"Uh, I don't know," Danny said, still with a load of happiness in his voice. "Just mentally prepare or something like that."

The hours ticked by slowly. The entire time they were getting ready by packing things that they would need. Tucker was thankful he brought some cell phones, because they were going to need them. He gave one to Sam, one to Danny, and kept one himself.

When it was about 9:30, the streets were completely dark, save a few street lights illuminating the dark, empty streets.

"Okay guys," Danny said, "now before we get ready to go out, get into your pajamas."

"Huh?" Sam asked. "What for?"

"My parents are going to come in and say good-night to us," Danny said. "We're going to need to look like we're actually going to sleep so my parents won't get suspicious of something."

"Okay," Sam and Tucker said in unison.

All three of them individually went into the bathroom and came out in their pajamas. As all of three of them were "dressed", Danny said they should crawl into bed now. And just as Danny predicted, Jack and Maddie knocked on their door.

Feigning exhaustion and that he was ready for bed, Danny went over to the door and greeted his parents with a fake yawn and a weak wave.

"You kids ready for some shut-eye?" Jack asked.

Danny nodded his head, still pretending to be exhausted. "Goodnight, dad."

"Goodnight, Danny," Jack replied. "See you kids in the morning."

Danny's parents closed the door. As soon as the sound of Jack and Maddie closing the door to their room was heard, Danny had an excited look on his face.

"All right, now let's get ready to infiltrate that lab," Danny said. He walked over to his day clothes piled on the floor by his bed and began to pick them up.

"So, exactly what are our plans again?" Sam asked, still not knowing what it was Danny was getting at.

"It's not that hard," Danny said. He pulled off his pajama top and started putting his arms through the sleeves of his regular shirt. "All you guys need to do is help me get into Skyler's lab unnoticed. I'll take the rest from there."

"How come you even need us then?" Tucker asked. "Couldn't you just go intangible and get into that lab unnoticed just as easy?"

"I guess," Danny said, now putting on his socks. "But what if something happens and I need backup? What will I do then?"

Tucker and Sam looked at each other as Danny continued getting back into his regular clothes. When he was finally ready to go, he saw that Sam and Tucker hadn't done a thing. "Well, what are you waiting for? Get ready!"

Sam and Tucker wasted no time. As soon as they were both ready, Danny grabbed both of them by the arm and had all three of them go intangible. In a matter of seconds, the three of them were flying over the empty night-time streets. Tucker and Sam were taking in the scenery as they watched the streets flow by the them when they looked down below. Danny, on the other hand, was staring straight as he piloted the three of them towards the lab.

"Cup Street…" Danny said to himself as he was flying through the night sky. "Good thing I kept track of that street name earlier today."

Finally, when Danny saw Cup Street, he took a turn at it and followed the road. In no time, he found the lab.

"All right guys, this is it," Danny said. "Time to end Skyler's experiment!"

"…or to at least figure out what he's doing," Tucker added on.

Danny planted him and his two friends on the ground right outside the main door to the lab.

"Okay, I'm going to drop you two guys off at different parts of the lab. If I need you guys, I'll call one of you on your cell phone, got it?" Danny said.

"Got it!" Tucker and Sam said simultaneously.

"And vice versa. If you guys see something strange or not right, don't hesitate to call me."

"Got it!"

"Okay!" Danny said. "Let's do this thing!"

Danny once again grabbed the two of them by the arm and made all three of them go intangible. He passed through the walls to the lab like they weren't even there, and in no time, they were in the same lab Danny was in earlier that day.

The lab, like the streets, looked even creepier at night. Even though Skyler was still the only person Danny saw in it, the lab seemed even more lifeless and empty. Danny showed his two friends which two ways he wanted them to go. Without saying a word, the group split up and headed in their separate directions.

While Sam and Tucker took surveillance of the side halls and rooms, Danny instead headed straight for the main lab in the center of the building. Danny was still invisible, so he didn't have to worry about Skyler seeing him. And in fact, Skyler _was_ in the main lab.

The lab was large and empty, except for a table in the center. On the table were really sharp instruments for experiments, and there were needles similar to the ones patients in the hospital have for injections. Inside those needles was the swirling black cloud that was part of the cloud earlier that day.

Danny watched as Skyler was running around the lab for some unknown reason. He pulled a few bandages out from cabinets and placed them on the table with the sharp objects and injection needles.

Confused, Danny continued to observe Skyler move about through the lab. Finally, when Skyler was sure he was alone, he ran over to the table. And what he did completely shocked Danny.

Skyler picked up one of the three needles that had the black cloud swirling around in it and began to stare at it for a little while. Finally, Skyler stuck the needle right into the joint behind his elbow. Skyler seemed to be in a bit of pain.

Danny was taken back by it. He could almost _feel_ the needle going into his own elbow joint as Skyler began injecting the material from the cloud in the needle into his own body.

"Okay, he's _definitely_ not doing that for research," Danny confidently concluded. He pulled the cell phone out of his pocket and called Tucker on it. Danny began to whisper, "Tucker, forget exploring and call the police pronto! Tell them to get to the science lab on Cup Street. Skyler's up to no good."

"_What's he doing?"_ Tucker asked as he talked through the phone with Danny.

"I'll explain later, just hurry up and get the cops over here!" Saying this, Danny hit the hang-up button on the cell phone and stashed it under his black jumpsuit. As soon as he did that, he looked to see what Skyler was doing.

Danny was able to see Skyler inject the third and final needle of cloud matter into himself. Skyler seemed to be in great pain now, and it looked like he had trouble standing up.

Skyler was screaming in pain. He bent downwards and had to press his hands on the table he was standing at to support himself. Danny wasted no time. He became visible again and ran into the center of the room where Skyler was seemingly struggling somehow.

"Skyler!" Danny yelled with rage filling in his voice. His teeth were grit and looked like he was ready to take someone on in a boxing match.

Skyler looked up, only his face looked much different. His face looked darker, more withered and angry. His once brown hair was now almost turning gray. He was very unhappy to see Danny standing there.

"What do you want?" Skyler managed to spit out.

"What do you think you're doing! I thought you wanted me to help you get samples of that cloud so you could study it and find a weak point in it!"

Skyler started smiling, revealing yellowing teeth in an evil grin that gave Danny the chills. He finally began standing up straight. He took small steps towards Danny, not once blinking.

"You mean Bhyrun?" Skyler asked. "Yes, that was my original intention. Now, I have changed my mind. Bhyrun and I are one!"

Confusion was written all over Danny's face. "What are you talking about!"

"Didn't you see that amazing power Bhyrun had?" Skyler asked. (he was talking about the cloud) "Wouldn't it be something if a human could obtain that kind of power?"

"You're kidding…" Danny mumbled. "You think putting stuff from that cloud into your blood is going to give you its powers! You could die from injecting it into yourself!"

"Think of the possibilities," Skyler said in a hissing voice. "Becoming one with Bhyrun…_merging_ with that cloud!...yes. That could possibly give me power greater than I ever imagined!"

"You're crazy!"

"I'm not insane, I'm fulfilling my desire. I wanted to see what would happen if a human were to fully bring out their potential. The way I see it, having Bhyrun's power within me by injecting myself with matter from that cloud is the way to do it."

"And the way _I_ see it," Danny started, "is that you're a moron who doesn't know what he's talking about! I'll bet you've just taken fifty years off your life doing that, not becoming immortal like you think you have!"

Skyler seemed amused and shocked at this. He started gently raising his hand up to his face. "Are you saying you don't think putting Bhyrun's material into me made me stronger?"

"No, I don't!" Danny yelled, putting his arms firmly at his side and clenching his hands into fists more solid than iron.

"Well, then," Skyler said with a nasty look on his face. "I guess we'll just have to find out, won't we?"

Danny and Skyler began standing off with each other, ready to fight.


	12. A New Enemy

Danny and Skyler stared at each other for a while. Not taking their eyes off each other, they began shifting their feet to move sideways across the floor. Then, without warning, Skyler opened up his hand and pointed it right towards Danny's face.

Danny put a force field around himself, expecting a blast of energy to come from Skyler's hand, but nothing came. After a while, Skyler looked really nervous that nothing was happening, and as soon as Danny realized that, he stopped protecting himself and started attacking.

Danny fired energy at Skyler, but only enough to knock Skyler unconscious. (Danny didn't want to actually hurt him) Skyler moved out of the way just in time and the blast ended up hitting the wall behind.

The energy smashed the wall and put a huge, burnt hole right into it. Charred bits of plaster from the wall chipped off and left Skyler staring in amazement. Skyler was just realizing Danny's true power, and since injecting himself with material from the cloud didn't make him stronger like he hoped it would, Skyler began backing away from Danny.

Danny stopped firing and started slowly walking over to Skyler. Skyler had an obvious look of terror on his newly darkened, withered face. The dark patches under his eyes started widening with his eyes as he continued to walk backwards and away from Danny.

"I'm not going to hurt you," Danny said. "Just give up and wait for some people to take you to a mental institute or something like that."

Skyler didn't say anything. He continued stuttering as he walked backwards. As Danny continued backing him further and further, Skyler began to shake more. Finally, Skyler hit a dead end when Danny backed him into the table with all of the tools on it. Skyler gasped when he saw he couldn't back up any further as he bumped into it.

"I'm trustworthy, don't worry," Danny reassured, trying to sound tough but merciful at the same time. "You just made a mistake, and you're going to pay for it. That's all."

Skyler continued to stare at Danny without blinking once. Finally, as Danny had enough and just had enough of him, he just started approaching Skyler faster.

When the two were just a few feet apart, Skyler pulled one of the sharp tools from the table up and pointed it at Danny faster than anyone could blink.

"Stay back!" Skyler's voice rasped. Skyler's pale arm was shaking violently as he pointed the tool at Danny.

Danny seemed taken back by this at first, but then just aimed his finger at the tool and fired ectoplasmic energy at the tool. In less than a second, the energy hit the tool and completely melted it.

Skyler gasped, now realizing he was unarmed once again. But it wasn't long before he reached behind himself and pulled out three more sharp objects. He pointed them at Danny, then threw one at Danny faster than any normal person could. The sharp object hit Danny and stuck itself in between his ribs.

Danny yelped in pain as he fell to the ground. Skyler got ready to throw another one until Danny started flying in the air, trying to ignore the pain that was beginning to throb in his side.

Danny was finally just about up to the ceiling, but as soon as he stopped, Skyler threw another sharp tool with superhuman speed. Danny watched in shock as the tool made a loud tapping sound as it lodged itself in the ceiling, less than an inch from Danny's face.

Skyler threw a third sharp object and it also just narrowly missed Danny. Danny started to get a little more serious as well. He started firing more energy down at Skyler, but not trying to seriously hurt him.

Skyler was moving a lot more quickly now for some reason. Danny noticed that Skyler's reflexes and speed seemed to get much better.

"Don't tell me injecting himself with that stuff actually helped," Danny said. "If that helped, then I have a _lot_ of trouble ahead of me."

Skyler was ready to throw another sharp object, but he found that he had run out of them. Danny took this opportunity to recover a little. He looked down and saw the sharp object still stuck in his ribs. He grabbed it and yanked it out as quickly as he could. The moment he pulled it out, another surge of pain shot through him, but it stopped pretty much then. Danny looked and saw a huge red spot coming through his black jumpsuit where the sharp tool had been embedded.

Danny landed on the ground with the tool that Skyler had pierced him with still in his hand. He looked at the red, blood tipped point of the object, then threw it to the side. Danny began staring at Skyler with angry eyes once again. However, this time it wasn't just for intimidation; it was for anger.

"Listen here!" Danny yelled, pointing at Skyler, "I don't know _why_ Harvard and Oxford gave you a diploma, but those professors must have been even more insane than you to let it happen!"

"I told you before," Skyler said, "I was trying to use Bhyrun's power to realize my own. Don't you think it's only natural to want that kind of super power?"

"Let me think about that…" Danny said. "Um…_no!_"

Saying this, Danny fired another blast at Skyler and hit him in the feet. Skyler screamed and fell to the ground. He seemed to be melting from pain, even though the blast was only supposed to be a burning feeling to wake Skyler up and for Danny to show him that he was better, not Skyler.

"Look, we can end this now, or we can keep hurting each other!" Danny said. "I say we end it now and wait!"

Skyler didn't say anything. He got up and ran for the table once again to grab a sharp object from the table, but Danny just blasted the table and vaporized everything on it by doing so.

"You just won't take a hint, will you?" Danny said. "Fine, you know what? You can do whatever you want, but I'm still stronger than you and could whoop your cocky butt any day. But, since I'm a nice guy, I won't do that. If you stop now, I'll let you go with a warning."

Skyler didn't say anything. He was taking a lot of time just moving around, which is exactly what Danny wanted. He wanted Skyler to take up as much time as possible.

Finally, Skyler made one last dash towards the sharp tool in the corner that Danny threw to the side. (the same one that he had previously thrown and pierced Danny)

Danny wasn't expecting this, and Skyler actually got the tool in the corner. Now, he could throw it at Danny with speed that would be very hard to beat.

Danny and Skyler started staring at each other, but Danny was trying to make himself move fast so Skyler would have a hard time hitting him. Finally, Skyler through the pointed object, and Danny went intangible as soon as Skyler threw it. And it was a good thing too, because if Danny didn't go intangible, then the sharp tool would have lodged itself right into Danny's forehead.

When Skyler saw that he was now once again unarmed, he started backing away. Danny went tangible again and started walking towards him.

Danny raised his hand and started forming energy in it, but he heard people walking around outside the lab. Danny went intangible and flew out of the room through the door where he heard sound on the other side. Sure enough, it was the police.

"Tucker, good thing you called the police like I asked you to," Danny said. He changed back to his human form when no one was looking and ran back into the room the scientist was in, pretending he was just in there for the first time.

"Dr. Skyler?" asked the police sergeant as he was handcuffing Skyler, "You're under arrest for attempting to take biological enhancements. You are going to stay in a jail cell for a few days until your trial."

Skyler grumbled as he looked around, looking for where the "Ghost Boy" went. When Skyler was completely handcuffed, he was led away by some of the lower ranked police officers.

Skyler walked over to Danny and said, "Were you the one who called?"

"No, my friend was," Danny said. "But I kinda told him to call, so…"

"Listen," the sergeant said, "I want you to go on Skyler's computer and find out as much about what he was trying to do as possible. It will help out with the investigation."

_I don't see the point, I could demolish Skyler pretty easily if I wanted to,_ Danny thought to himself. But, he didn't want to give the sergeant any idea that he was a ghost (or at least could cause trouble) so he just agreed.

Danny went over to a computer and started reading looking through all the files on it. He was looking for anything that could possibly explain the incident with the cloud, or what the heck "Bhyrun" meant.

After looking for a while, Danny found a file that looked like it had some useful information on it. He opened it up and it read: THE HISTORY OF BHYRUN

_The black cloud that appears in the sky is not really a cloud, but a visible curse. It is the current form of Bhyrun, the Dark Mage of 1368. By opening up the bottle, life is given to the curse and it is reborn. When the curse is reborn, so is Bhyrun. Bhyrun inhabits the cloud and when he is reborn, he gains more and more power through time. The cloud will come back; Bhyrun will come back; so the curse will come back. The only way to permanently end the curse is to destroy Bhyrun. Bhyrun cannot be harmed by any earthly substance._

"Uh, okay?" Danny said, not sure what the heck the passage he read on the computer meant. "Well, it doesn't matter. Skyler's arrested; that nut couldn't be put behind bars fast enough. I guess I should go find Sam and Tucker now."


	13. An Unsuspected Attack

Skyler was now in handcuffs and taken away in a police cruiser; he wouldn't be bothering them again. Unfortunately for Danny, that was just the beginning of his problems.

As soon as the police had taken Skyler away, Danny left the main room of the lab and started looking around for Tucker and Sam. After looking for only a few minutes, he found the two of them in a side room.

"Danny, the police just came!" Sam yelled. "And they took away Skyler."

"I know," Danny coolly replied. "I told Tucker to call them to arrest Skyler. Skyler was being a complete idiot and thought that by injecting some stuff from that dark cloud into himself, he would become stronger and more powerful."

"Well, what do we do now?" Tucker asked. "Now that Skyler's gone, do we need to focus on getting rid of that cloud again?"

"I'm not so sure about that," Danny said in a depressed way. "I looked at Skyler's files and found that there's more to the story behind that cloud. That cloud is actually a curse that goes back to 1368. Somehow, by that bottle getting opened, it looks like the curse was revived, and the Dark Mage was revived with it."

"Dark Mage?" Tucker asked. "Who was that?"

"That Bhyrun guy, remember?" Danny asked. "The stinker is that we have no idea what he looks like or where we can find him."

"Well, what do you think we should do?" Sam asked.

"I'm thinking we need to do more research," Danny said. "If that crackpot Skyler could find out anything about that cloud, so could we. I say we go back to the hotel and do more research on Tucker's laptop."

"Good thinking," Sam added.

Danny flew Tucker and Sam back to their hotel room without being noticed. As soon as they passed through the window and were back safe and sound inside, Danny let them go and changed back to his human form.

"All right, guys," Danny said. "Do you want to do research now or do you want to wait until the morning?"

"I'm pretty tired," Tucker said. "I could certainly go for some shuteye.

"Me too," Sam concurred. She was crawling into bed until she noticed something on Danny's shirt. As soon as she saw it, she gasped. "Danny! What happened?"

"Huh?" Danny asked.

"What's that red stuff on your shirt? Is it…blood?"

Danny looked down and saw an obvious bloodstain on his shirt on the spot where Skyler had thrown the tool into him.

"Oh, that…" Danny said. "It's just a cut from when Skyler and I were fighting. It's no big deal, really."

"Let me see," Sam said. She ran over to Danny and lifted up part of his shirt so she could see the cut. She lost her breath when she looked at it. "That's even worse than I imagined!"

For Danny to be perfectly honest, it was worse than he thought, too. The wound seemed to go pretty deep. It looked like an entire pool of red around a small spot, along with a pink ring surrounding the stabbed area.

"You'd better put a band-aid or something on that," Sam said. "It's going to get infected if you don't."

"Good thinking," Danny said. He went in the bathroom to pull a band-aid out of the cabinet and put it on the cut. "Thanks for noticing," Danny said when he came out.

"All right, now let's hop on the internet and find out stuff about Bhyrun," Tucker said enthusiastically a second later.

"Wait, I thought you wanted to go to bed," Danny recalled.

"After seeing what Skyler did to you?" Sam asked. "No way! If Skyler wants to merge with that cloud or get as powerful as it is, then we're going to stop at nothing to find a way to stop it!"

"Yeah! No one hurts my friend and gets away with it…except for maybe Dash," Tucker said.

"Guys, I appreciate the help," Danny said, "but you really don't have to stay up later than you want to do research just for me."

"If Skyler's that violent and can hurt you that bad," Sam said, "you're going to need all the help you can get to beat him."

"Guys, you're the best," Danny said, smiling.

A few minutes later, Tucker found something on a website regarding the supernatural.

"Guys, it looks like Bhyrun can take on the form of anything," Tucker said as he read off the website.

"What are you talking about?" Danny asked.

"Bhyrun, the Dark Mage, can take on the form of any living person once he is revived," Tucker clarified. "Basically, it says that if you see any living human, that could very well be Bhyrun."

"Are you sure that's true?" Sam doubtfully said.

"Everything else has been true so far," Tucker retorted.

"Okay, then that is a HUGE problem," Danny said. "We're talking about this guy who can do really bad stuff, and he's walking around like he's a regular person! How am I going to find him?"

"You think it could be Skyler?" Tucker asked. "Think about it: why else would Skyler want to inject himself with material from the cloud? The only explanation I can think of is that Bhyrun overshadowed Skyler so Skyler could get some power from the cloud, and by injecting it into himself, Bhyrun would get it."

"You know, that actually _does_ make sense," Danny concurred. "It looks like that's our only lead for now. Luckily, with Skyler behind bars, we might not have to worry about him getting any more power."

"Yeah," Tucker said. "Anyway, I'm getting pretty tired right now. What say we call it a night and continue doing more research on this tomorrow?"

"All right," Danny said. He walked over to his bed and crawled under the covers. "Thanks again for all the help you guys have given me about this."

"Don't mention it," Tucker said.

"Good night, guys," Sam said.

As soon as all three of them were in their separate beds, Danny reached over and shut the lights in the hotel room out.

A few hours later, Danny awoke with a jolt. He looked around the dark hotel room and only saw its pitch black physical appearance. Danny wasn't sure what it was that caused him to abruptly wake up, but he found out in a second or so.

Danny heard breathing. Heavy breathing. Danny was even sure he heard something walking around close by. There was definitely something in the room with them.

Danny reached over and found the lamp sitting on his night table. He found the switch and flipped it, turning the light on and illuminating the room. Danny's eyes tried to adjust to the light, but he didn't need to see perfectly to see something in front of him.

There was a creature staring right at him. It was tall, had deadly green and red eyes and had a dark red physical appearance. It looked like a human, but it was completely red and had sharp claws and teeth.

Danny lost his breath, but then closed his eyes. _Steady, Danny,_ he told himself, _this is all a dream. You're going to open your eyes and that thing will be gone. _Danny thought that and then opened his eyes, but the monster was still there.

"Okay, this isn't a dream, is it?" Danny said. "Okay, I've got enough to worry about as it is. I don't need something like this going and ruining my vacation anymore than it already has."

Danny transformed into Danny Phantom and immediately fired a blast of energy at the monster. It roared in pain, but instantly charged at Danny. Danny went intangible just in time and the monster passed right through him. Danny flew away from the creature and landed on the floor.

"Huh…wha?..." said Sam, still asleep. She opened her eyes and saw the monster Danny was fighting. She started screaming, which of course woke Tucker up.

Tucker had a similar reaction, except he got scared to the point where he hid under the covers for protection.

The weird creature turned its attention towards Sam and Tucker, and knowing they were defenseless, ran over to attack them. That is, until Danny charged at it from the side and kicked it in the side of the head.

The monster screamed roared in pain and was knocked against a side of the wall. While it was still down, Danny ran over to it and fired energy at it. The monster howled in more pain, but when Danny saw that he was about to attack it, the monster went intangible for a second itself.

"Wait, these things are ghosts?" Danny asked. "Then I can just grab the Fenton Thermos and…uggggghhhh. JAZZ!"

Since Jazz didn't plan on any ghosts on their "ghost-free" vacation, she thought it was necessary to leave the thermos behind. Now how was Danny going to beat these things?

When the creature became solid again, Danny continued firing blast after blast at it without mercy. Finally, the monster died. Literally.

The creature began to screech in pain, and it curdled up into a ball and slowly began to disappear. Danny seemed a bit disturbed at the thought of actually killing it, but he got over it after a minute or so.

"Great work, Danny," Sam said happily with a huge sigh of relief. "Tucker, you can come out from under the covers now."

Tucker nervously peeked out over the quilt on the bed, and when he saw the monster was gone, he fully sat up. "Whew, that was close."

"I wonder what the heck that thing was," Danny said. "I've never battled a creature like that before."

Danny changed back into his human form, looking as exhausted as ever. He looked at the clock and saw it was 3:00 in the morning.

"Well, fighting some weird monster isn't exactly what I want to do this early in the morning," Danny said. "How did that thing even get in here without anybody noticing? Oh well, enough talk. What say we get back to sleep."

Tucker and Sam both nodded their heads. Danny was about to go to sleep until he noticed something. He was shivering a little, and he embraced himself to stay warm.

"Hey guys, it's a little cold in here. How about I shut the window?" Danny asked. He went over to the window and opened the curtain so he could close the window. As soon as he opened the window, he had an unpleasant surprise. There was _another_ one of the monsters staring at him in the window, and it had wings and was flapping in mid air.

Danny froze up. "So…they can fly," he said with fear in his voice.

The creature roared loudly and then burst its way into the hotel room through the opened window with its dragon-like wings open. When it was in the room and landed, it closed its wings.

Danny didn't waste any time. He turned into his ghost form once again and start getting up close to the monster and started attacking it with his fists. After punching it in the face a few times, the monster fought back and grabbed Danny by the throat. When Danny was helpless in the monster's grip, he showed Danny its two claws and made it obvious it was going to crush Danny's skull on both side with those claws.

Just as the sharp claws were about to break through Danny's head, the monster felt a smash in the head. It turned around and Tucker was holding a controller to his Playstation2 and was swinging it around like a lasso.

"Come on, you want to mess?" Tucker challenged. He continued spinning the controller around by the chord and swung the controlling part at the monster and hit it in the head with it. The monster dropped Danny and instead went for Tucker. But as soon as it let go of Danny, Danny countered by firing some of his own energy at the back of its head.

The monster turned around at Danny and started growling, but as it growled, Danny fired some energy in its mouth and crippled it. As the monster knelt down after Danny fried its throat, Danny fired one more blast right into the monster's face.

The creature began howling in pain again, and it too also began to disappear in thin air. After is disappeared, the room became quiet.

All three kids were breathing heavy, and Danny was now covered in sweat from both fights. He let out a quick sigh and went over to the window to close it. As he closed it, he turned back to look at Sam and Tucker.

"Okay, am I the only one who thinks those things have some connection to that cloud?" Danny asked. "I have never had to fight anything like those before."

"Well, you seemed to be able to beat them with no trouble," Sam said. "And at least they're officially dead now, so you don't have to worry about them coming back once you beat them."

"Yeah, I guess you're right," Danny said.

Then Danny heard a loud roar from behind him. Danny was right in front of the window, but he had his back to it so he couldn't see what was outside. However, he didn't have to use his imagination to figure it out.

Danny's face turned to a glum expression. Without turning around, he looked at Sam and Tucker and said in a surprisingly cool voice, "there's another one of those things at the window staring in at me, isn't there?"

Sam and Tucker had nervous expressions on their faces as they both nodded their heads.

Danny moaned and turned around and looked at the third monster flapping its wings outside the window as it stared at him.

"Where do these things keep coming from?" Danny asked, annoyed as he got ready to fight a third one of those creatures.


	14. Their Origin

Danny and the mysterious creature continued to stare off for a long time until Danny finally made the first move. He fired a quick blast at the creature's intimidating red face and knocked it back.

The monster, however, took no time to get back up and get back in the action. It made a few swipes at Danny, but Danny dodged then with little to no trouble. As Danny was dodging swipe after swipe, Tucker and Sam ran into a corner to hide, not wanting the creature to accidentally slice them into pieces.

After a short amount of time, Danny finally had enough and fired more energy from his hand and tried to aim it at the beast's eyes this time. Luckily, it worked, and the creature began roaring in pain

The monster began to stagger backwards as Danny jumped up in front of it. In no time, he started pelting the creature with a series of solid punches and hits that had it lying on the ground in no time.

"Time to finish this!" Danny yelled. He put his hand right over where the beast's heart would be and charged up a blast of energy. Danny had a bizarre and painful feeling in him, asking _"do you really want to do this? Do you really want to kill that thing?"_

Trying his best to ignore that instinct, Danny fired that blast right into the monster's chest. The creature made one last howl of pain, and then it quietly began disappearing as the two monsters before it did.

Danny was breathing hard and heavy. He was exhausted after being woken up early in the morning and having to fight three very strange creatures. After a while, Danny reverted back to his human form. His black hair was no longer messy from bed-head, but from all the fighting. There were obvious sweat spots on his pajamas and his blue eyes were half-shut.

Tucker and Sam popped out from the corner and ran over to Danny.

"Danny, awesome work!" Tucker congratulated. "You showed those guys a thing or two!"

"Yeah, good going," Sam agreed. "But I can't help but get the feeling that something wasn't right about all that."

"What are you talking about?" Danny asked.

"I don't know," Sam said. "It just seemed like there was something wrong when you disintegrated those monsters after you finished them."

"Me too," Danny said. "I actually felt the same thing, but I'm not feeling sorry for killing them. They were the ones who started it, after all."

Danny would soon learn to regret those words.

"Anyway, if you guys don't mind, I'd like to get back to sleep. Fighting a cloud, an insane scientist and getting him arrested, and then fighting three weird monsters sure takes it outta ya," Danny said, forcing a tired smile across his face.

Just as Danny was about to go into bed, he heard a roaring sound. Danny looked towards the window, and there was a _fourth_ monster out there. Like the other three, it had a dark red body and piercing eyes and claws.

Danny moaned very exhaustion, but it was blatantly obvious that he was moaning mostly from annoyance. He didn't _want_ to be fighting those things, whatever they were; Danny more so wanted to know where they were coming from.

Danny ran to the window where the fourth creature was staring in at him. Danny once again went ghost and immediately went intangible. He passed through the walls of the hotel and didn't waste any time. He began punching the snot out of the monster and showed it little mercy.

"It is too much to ask to get a _little_ shut eye around here!" Danny yelled angrily. "This was supposed to be a vacation, you know!"

As Danny was screaming at the monster (which he doubted could actually understand a thing he was saying), he was pounding the monster's face with his solid fist doing everything he could to finish it in less than a second.

The two were fighting several stories into the air. It would be very disturbing for someone to look out their window and see a fourteen year old ghost with glowing green fists floating several stories in the air as he pulverized a monster that looked like a dark red, thin ape with dragon-like wings.

"I've had enough of this!" Danny yelled. "I will finish you right here and now!"

Danny's fists seemed to charge up with energy as he delivered one last punch into the monster's face. The monster began disappearing as Danny stared at it with grit teeth and an angry, yet exhausted, expression.

When the monster was completely gone, Danny said, "Finally! Now can I please go to bed?"

Danny was ready to go intangible again and go into his hotel room until he looked ahead. There were several more of those monsters floating in the air only a few yards away from him, all of them looking very vicious and ready to attack.

"I am so tired of this," Danny said. He just charged right into the herd of those monsters and began blasting them away with all of his energy.

It was pretty difficult for Danny to actually finish off all the monsters as he flew in the air, mostly because there were so many of him and they kept coming at him from all directions. In fact, as they surrounded him, the monsters began clawing and scratching at Danny with about as much mercy as he gave the previous four.

Danny was clearly getting mauled, and he wouldn't last literally a minute longer if he didn't do something. As he was getting attacked and clawed at, he tried to move out of the way, but every time he moved, he get smashed back into the center of the four or five monsters as they formed a circle and simultaneously smashed him.

Aside from a few grunts and moans, Danny couldn't do a thing as the monsters continued to tear him apart. If Danny kept this up for a few more seconds, he'd be knocked unconscious, probably fall from the sky to the ground, several stories below and…well, you get the idea.

"_Let…me…GO!"_ Danny finally shrieked, rage filling in his voice. He created a shield around himself so powerful that it blew the creatures away and sent them flying through the air. Before they could even begin to recover, Danny started firing blasts of energy at each and every single one of them, each blast filled with more rage than the last. He was blasting the monsters and showed them no mercy, and savagely finished them, the same way a wolf finishes a herd of sheep.

Danny was breathing hard as he watched the handful of creatures start to disappear in thin air after they were defeated. It looked like it was all over, but unfortunately for Danny, it wasn't.

Danny looked in front of him, and he could see some large things flying at him, but they were quite a good distance away, possibly a few miles.

It was obvious that the things flying at him from about a mile away were more monsters that Danny just had to fight off. Danny didn't wait for them to reach him, instead he charged at _them_ and was about to attack them all in a savage manner.

When Danny was right in front of three of them as they floated in the sky, Danny blast all three of them in less than two seconds. The three monsters, surprised by the quick speeds and blasts, were getting dizzy from Danny's attacks. Danny then ran over to each one of them and tried to throw them down into the ground, and he had enough strength in his tired state to be able to do it.

Danny watched as the three monsters slammed into the ground a few stories below and began to disappear. Now, Danny's adrenaline was so high that nothing could stop him, or so he thought…

Danny finally caught a break when he saw where the monsters were coming from. Apparently, the monsters were coming out of a dark building on the corner of a street.

"So, they're coming from _inside_ something?" Danny said to himself. "Well, I'm gonna find out _why_ they're coming out of that building."

Danny went intangible and passed through the building. He looked around, and it was disturbingly quiet and empty. There were a few lights illuminating the hall, but that only seemed to make the building creepier. The floor was marbled and the walls were made of cement blocks piled on top of one another. There was a front desk and there seemed to be a few other rooms, but the entire place had an unwelcome feel to it. Danny was feeling uncomfortable being there, not only because he knew that's where all the monsters were coming from, but because the place was so empty.

Danny listed as his heavy breathing and footsteps echoed across the empty wall. There were a few side halls, but Danny didn't investigate any until he heard a scream from the end of one of the halls. The scream was weird though, because it doesn't sound like a monster. It sounded like it was a person who was screaming.

Danny gasped and looked down the hall, and out from looked like a side room in the hall came another one of the monsters that Danny had been fighting for almost an hour.

"I wish I knew what was going on here!" Danny yelled. "These things are popping out of nowhere!"

Danny ran down the long hall and didn't notice all the side doors that he thought led to other rooms. He just kept his focus on the monster that he was going to fight. Danny was getting really tired of having to fight over ten of these monsters in one hour, starting with the one that went into his hotel room, leading Danny to finding where they were coming from.

As Danny and that mysterious creature fought, Danny was really getting weakened. He was exhausted after getting only a few hours of sleep and having to fight these strange monsters over and over.

Danny kicked the monster onto the ground, and as soon as the monster was on its back, Danny fired his energy into the ceiling and started cutting out a square right above the monster's head in the ceiling. When the square was completed after Danny cut it out with his ectoplasmic energy in the ceiling, the chunk inside the square fell from the ceiling and fell right on the monster's head, crushing it.

To Danny's pleasant surprise, after the ceiling fragment crushed the monster's head, the monster began to disappear. Danny smiled briefly as he saw the monster disappear and, therefore, die.

Just as Danny thought that was the last of them, he heard something. However, it wasn't another monster or creature; it was a laugh. A soft, malicious laugh.

That's when Danny realized that the doors around him on the side walls weren't actually doors to other rooms, but to jail cells. Danny almost lost his breath when the revelation came to him that he was actually in a prison.

As Danny realized this, he once again heard the malicious laughing. It seemed to come from a jail cell at the end of the hall. Danny gulped and nervously started walking towards the end of the hall towards the jail cell where the laughing was coming from. It was after taking a few steps where Danny realized that the jail cell he was hearing the laughter from was the same one that the last monster he battled came out of.

Danny could hear his heart racing as he continued to approach the jail cell at the end of the hall. He continued taking tiny baby steps towards the jail cell as the malicious and quiet laughing gradually got louder. When Danny was right in front of the jail cell, he saw that the door was opened, but there was someone in it.

Danny quietly walked into the jail cell, but couldn't see who was inside the cell too clearly. The person had their face buried in their hands, but there was no doubt the laughter was coming from them.

Danny reached his hand out slowly to touch the person in the cell, but when his hand was only a few inches away, the person's face shot up and let out a scream so loud it made Danny jump and his heart temporarily stop.

When Danny started breathing again, he saw who was inside the jail cell: it was Skyler. Even though Danny had just seen Skyler earlier that night, he looked much different. Skyler's face was much more dark gray and looked a lot more evil and piercing. His teeth had grown to be quite yellow, and even a little sharp. He let out an even louder and evil laugh when he saw that Danny was standing there.

"You…" Skyler hissed, not taking the vicious grin off his face. "What are you doing here? You're the one who put me in this jail cell in the first place!"

"Skyler!" Danny yelled. "What have you done! You look terrible! How'd you get like this!"

Skyler closed his mouth and emitted a small chuckle. He then asked, "I should be the one asking all the questions. How did you get passed the guards and other prisoners?"

Danny never thought of that. The guards, Skyler's cellmates…none of them were there. Danny didn't see anyone in the prison except for Skyler.

"I…I didn't see them," Danny said, not knowing what else to say.

"Really?" Skyler said, getting up and keeping the evil smile on his face. "I thought for sure you would have met them on your way over here."

"What are you talking about?" Danny asked angrily. "I didn't see _anyone_ hear! All I saw were some weird looking monsters on my way over here!"

"I see," Skyler said in a calm, creepy way. "Then you _did_ see the guards and prisoners."

Danny froze up, and it seemed every part of him stopped working. "You don't mean…"

"Yes!...YES!" Skyler said. "Those monsters you fought on your way over-the ones that looked like people except dark red that could fly…they were the guards!"

"You mean…I…I didn't…" Danny stuttered.

"YES!" Skyler yelled with a mix of anger and pleasure in his voice. "By killing those monsters, you've killed people! And I thought you were supposed to be the hero!"

Danny's eyes started filling with tears of rage. "You've made me kill real people!" he screamed, full of hatred. "I swear I will…"

Skyler just started laughing manically. "You cannot beat me now! I am one with Bhyrun! I am part of him! He is part of me!"

Danny couldn't say anything. He was breathing heavy with his teeth grit so hard that he thought he could smash his teeth by grinding them together.

"Now, it's your turn!" Skyler yelled. "With you gone, nothing will stop me and Bhyrun from ruling all! Nothing!"

Danny couldn't say anything. Before he could even move, Skyler put out his hand and fired a blast of dark red light from it. The light hit Danny right in the chest, and Skyler expected Danny to turn into one of the monsters too. However, nothing happened.

Skyler looked very upset now. "What! Why are you not turning into a Bhyspawn?"

"A Bhyspawn?" Danny asked. "Is that what those monsters are called?"

"Bhyrun!" Skyler screamed. "Don't tell me he's actually…he can't really be…this ghost cannot possibly be him!"

Danny watched in horror as Skyler seemed to actually lift off the ground, as if he were flying. Skyler didn't have wings or anything like that, but he was still flying.

"You'll pay for this!" Skyler yelled. Skyler fired some energy from his hand and put a hole through the ceiling of the prison. He flew out of the prison and was now outside.

"You will _all_ pay!" Skyler yelled as he continued hovering higher and higher into the air as his voice filled with anger.

Danny could only watch as Skyler floated higher and higher into the sky.


	15. More Problems

Before I begin, I would like to thank Horselvr4evr123 for that recent review. I know it was only one review, but after not getting one for seven or eight chapters, I had just about given up. Thank you very much for that one review, please keep'em coming!

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Danny watched as Skyler continued to levitate higher and higher in the air. His mouth was a gaping hole on his face. Danny was beginning to think that Skyler wasn't a freak, but possibly right. Had Skyler _really_ fused with the dark cloud? Was it possible?

Skyler was a lot higher now, and he blended in with the pitch black night sky. When Danny could no longer see him, he went intangible and flew out of the deserted prison.

Danny began flying back to his hotel. He tried to remember it the best he could, but it was hard enough to concentrate since it was night out and he was in an area he had only seen for a few days. But to add on to that, Danny now had an insane scientist who possibly was now part of a dark cloud that seemed to have some very weird and disturbing powers.

He finally found the hotel after flying through the air for what seemed like the longest and time and went intangible when he saw his hotel room. He passed through the window and appeared right before a worried Sam and Tucker.

"Danny!" Tucker screamed. "What happened to all those monsters? What were they?"

Danny sighed with depression in his voice. He readied himself for the painful news he was about to break to his two friends.

"Those monsters…" Danny started. "Were actually people."

Tucker and Sam looked at each other with confused eyes, then Sam turned to Danny and said, "What are you talking about?"

"It was Skyler," Danny said. "I think he's _actually_ merged with that black cloud, because he was able to do a lot of these super-freaky things that I'm sure he couldn't do before."

"But what does that have to do with those things actually being people?" Tucker questioned.

"Skyler seemed to have some weird power. It looked like he could fire some ray or something from his hand that apparently is able to turn anyone into this thing he calls a Bhyspawn."

"A Bhyspawn?" Tucker asked. "What are those?"

"A Bhyspawn is that thing that just came into our hotel room earlier tonight! I ended up having to fight a lot more of them when I left the room and went to wherever they were coming from."

"Well, where _were_ they coming from?" Sam curiously asked.

"The jail," Danny said in a low, uncaring voice. "That's where I found Skyler. I fought him earlier tonight in his science lab, but Tucker called the police and they came to apprehend Skyler. That must have been the jail he was sent to."

"That still doesn't explain those Bhyspawn," Sam added.

"Well, that ray he fired at me must have been the thing that turned all the guards and other prisoners into those Bhyspawn."

"Wait…he fired it _at_ you?" Tucker asked.

"Yeah."

"Then how come you're not one of those monsters if that ray hit you?"

"I don't know," Danny said. "That's the weird part. If that ray was the power he had that could turn people into those monsters, then I don't know why _I'm_ not one."

"Maybe it's not the ray, then?" Sam said, putting her most logical guess in.

"It had to be," Danny said. "He didn't have any other powers. If he had more powers, I'm sure he would have used them on me."

"He had _no_ other powers?"

"Well, I guess he can fly. But that's just about it."

Tucker and Sam looked confused. They were trying to figure out why Danny didn't get turned into one of those strange monsters if he was zapped by Skyler's beam. Danny had more important things to worry about. He needed to know where Skyler was, and more importantly, what he was planning to do.

"Skyler is still out there," Danny said. "And I'm going to need to find him, learn what the heck he wants to do and stop him."

"Well, you're definitely not doing it now," Sam said. "You've got circles under your eyes darker than my makeup under a black light. You need some rest."

Danny grunted, but then agreed that some shut-eye would probably do him good. He crawled into bed and tried to get at least a little bit of sleep for the remainder of the night.

When Danny woke up a few hours later, he couldn't exactly say he felt refreshed, but it made him feel a little better.

Danny sat up and saw Sam and Tucker staring at him, almost like they were wondering if he was okay.

"Feeling better?" Tucker asked.

"Yeah," Danny said, nodding his head. "So much stuff happened last night it's practically a blur. You know, fighting Skyler and all…"

Danny's eyes widened in fear as he said that. He looked like he had just remembered he had a giant book report to do the night before he had to hand it in. "Where's Skyler now?"

Tucker and Sam looked at each other. Neither one of them had seen him either.

"I gotta go out and look for him!" Danny said. "He's probably up to no good. You two stay here and tell my parents that I'm down in hotel's arcade."

"Wait, this hotel's arcade is closed!" Sam yelled.

"I know, that will make them confused," Danny said. He turned into his ghost form and flew out of the hotel room once again. He was at first disturbed by how high his hotel room was off the ground when he flew out, but he was more than used to it now.

Danny instantly saw the cloud once again hovering in the sky, and he also saw Skyler hovering right underneath it with his arms out, almost like he was performing some ritual. Danny flew over to the cloud as quickly as he could, but about half way there, a loud sound was heard.

Danny was thrown back by a giant green, circular wave that emitted between Skyler and the cloud. Instantly, Danny could tell Skyler was shouting words of triumph and glory. A giant emerald colored gas engulfed around him as he continued to throw his arms in the air. Danny could hardly believe his eyes.

As the green gas from the cloud continued to engulf Skyler, Danny could see Skyler was no longer himself. Instead, Skyler was beginning to turn a lot more dark red and grow to a little over six feet in height. His eyes turned larger and looked more oval, and they were dark red. He still looked like a human, but he was completely red and even had a small red cloud around him. His fingernails had grown to look like claws, and his teeth turned green.

Danny gasped when he saw Skyler change to this form. Skyler was now obviously going to be a much bigger problem. Along with changing form, Skyler probably got a bunch of new powers or abilities.

Danny flew over to Skyler and rammed him as fast and as hard as he could, hoping that he would injure Skyler or at least distract him enough to get a few more attacks in.

Unfortunately, Skyler seemed a lot stronger now. Danny was able to ram him, but that was just about it. Skyler sprouted what looked like sharp wings from his back (after a bit of moaning in pain) that resembled the letter "M" on its side.

"You again," Skyler said. "I see we our paths finally cross once again."

"Save it, Skyler," Danny said. "What have you done to yourself?"

"I have merged with Bhyrun!"

"Not that stuff again," Danny moaned. "Look, if you're going to go ruining my vacation anymore than you already have, then why don't you…"

Danny was blasted to the ground by a ray Skyler fired from his hand. Danny got sent flying to the ground and smashed into it so hard a few cracks were made in the pavement. Danny staggered up and Skyler flew down to the ground with his new wings. As Skyler tapped himself onto the ground, he folded up his wings and he put his hands on his hips. He walked over to Danny with a sneer on his face.

"Last night in my laboratory, you may have beaten me, Ghost Child," Skyler said. He bent downwards and grabbed the sides of Danny's face and pulled it upwards, towards him. "But I think I'm a little bit more powerful now, don't you?"

Danny only grunted. He hadn't even been awake for ten minutes and already he was getting beat up bad enough that he could even be killed.

"Surrender to Bhyrun, and he may let you live!" Skyler sneered.

Danny didn't say anything. He just fired back and blasted Skyler in the face with some ectoplasmic energy.

Skyler got sent flying back, but he started floating up into the air and growled. He got ready to fire a blast at Danny, but before he could, Danny shot up into the air and fired a blast quicker than Skyler could react.

Skyler sprouted his sharp wings again and started growling. In no time, the two were flying in the air, exchanging blasts.

Skyler was firing deep red beams from his hands, and Danny did his best to avoid them. He wasn't sure what effect the dark red beam had, but Danny was sure it was going to hurt.

People were standing outside and screaming as the two continued to fight. Shouts were heard, but Danny had to do his absolute best to ignore them. Skyler was moving much faster now and was obviously much more deadly.

The soft, but intimidating red cloud around Skyler also posed as a distraction to Danny, as did the flapping of Skyler's newfound wings.

Danny fired one blast at Skyler and hit him in the face, and Skyler was sent backwards. Danny continued by jumping right in front of Skyler (or hovering right in front of him) and punching him in the face twice, and then firing a blast of ectoplasmic energy right between the eyes.

Skyler was almost knocked unconscious as Danny continued to get meaner and meaner by the second. Just as Danny was about ready to deliver a final blow and send Skyler into the ground where other people could attack him, Skyler lashed out and gave Danny a quick and painful uppercut.

Danny was sent flying into the air after the uppercut, but Skyler soared up even faster than Danny was launched. As soon as they were at eye-level, Skyler gave Danny a hard punch in the face. Danny got knocked backwards, but now had a huge trail of blood pouring from his nose.

Skyler grabbed Danny by the neck and was then pointing downwards. He turned Danny so his head was facing the ground, and then started quickly accelerating downward.

Danny gasped when he saw that in a matter of moments, Skyler would smash him into the ground while going at over a hundred miles an hour. Thinking fast, Danny went intangible and passed right through the ground as Skyler hit it.

Skyler was in pain after accidentally ramming himself into the ground instead of Danny being smashed in as he had thought.

Danny passed up from the ground when Skyler was still recovering and began firing some energy into his face.

At first, Skyler could only sit there as Danny continued to practically annihilate him, but finally Skyler had a surge of energy. He spiked up into the air so fast that if you blinked, you'd miss it.

Danny got dizzy for a few seconds when Skyler blasted into the sky. When Skyler was in the air, he fired some of those dark red beams of energy right at Danny. They hit him in the gut, and they almost hurt more than a blast from a regular ghost.

As Danny staggered up, Skyler floated down on to the ground and walked over to Danny. He grabbed Danny by the ankle and lifted him up in the air and flipped Danny over his head.

Danny plummeted onto the ground after Skyler flipped him over his head. Danny landed on the ground on his back, and he had huge trouble getting up.

Skyler went over to Danny and began chuckling. He then looked up into the sky and said, "That's it, Bhyrun. We have him. Now we can finish him and no one will be able to stop us!"

Skyler sprouted his sharp wings once again and floated up to the cloud. Danny was barely conscious, and he saw to his shock that Skyler actually went _through_ the cloud. It was solid before, so why could Skyler now go through it.

Danny got a greater shock when a small opened in the bottom of the cloud, and suddenly Danny felt himself getting pulled up, like a tractor beam was bringing him closer to the cloud.

Danny tried resisting and he tried pulling away, but it wasn't working. He was still getting pulled, no matter how much effort he put into stopping it.

Finally, Danny just gave in. He gradually lost consciousness as he got lifted higher and higher, and closer and closer towards the cloud.

Finally, Danny's eyes closed and everything went black. He was now _inside_ the cloud.


	16. Bhyrun's Identity

All Danny saw was pitch black. He woke up a short while later and saw that he was in a very dark place. It looked almost like a cave. It was cold and empty. He felt like he was sitting on very solid ground, possibly stone. Everything was pretty much pitch-black that was more than three feet in front of him. Physically, there was no one-or nothing in the area with him. But, Danny got a sinking feeling that he was not alone.

"Ah, you're awake," said a cold, hissing voice.

Danny jumped up as if he were shot in the back with a BB gun or some similar instrument. He looked around, still shivering.

"Wh…who's there?" he timidly asked.

Danny turned around and saw a dark figure standing in what little light there was in the room. Suddenly, all his breath was lost; he seemed to be choking on his own racing heartbeat.

"You don't know who I am?" the voice asked. "I would assume after all the time you spent with Skyler you would know."

The figure stepped further into what little light Danny could see with and his face was now visible.

The figure was wearing a very dark cape. He was a little tall, but was very skinny. His hands were very bony, and Danny could almost see the joints in the knuckles moving whenever the figure moved his fingers. But the most disturbing part of all was definitely the face. The person's head looked almost exactly like a skull, but the white was actually skin. His grin showed rows of uneven, ghostly white teeth.

"My name is Bhyrun," the figure calmly said.

"Bhyrun…" Danny whispered to himself. He looked down at the floor with his teeth clamped together. He was now very scared of what was going to happen.

"Yes," Bhyrun said. He looked exactly what a serial killer from a horror movie would look like.

"You look very familiar," Danny said. "I've definitely seen you somewhere before!"

"Silence!" Bhyrun said. "You have caused me enough trouble as it is! It is time I made you work for _me_ now instead of giving me fits."

Bhyrun held out his deathly white hand and fired a dark red beam at Danny. The ray hit the black jumpsuit and sparks started flying out from the spot where he was getting hit, but nothing else seemed to be happening.

Bhyrun's face dropped. It went from an expression of rage to confusion. He looked like he was expecting something to happen that wasn't. After staring off for a few seconds, Bhyrun started cracking an evil smile.

Bhyrun walked back into the darkness and out of Danny's sight. Danny had no idea where Bhyrun was going or what he was doing, but he had to do something now to escape.

He got up and started running into the darkness around him, but he had no idea where he was going. Every single time he'd run, he'd get lost and wind back up in the single illuminated spot in (what he thought was) the center of the dark room.

"Okay, let's see if I can get everything straight," Danny said. "Skyler is now completely evil and has morphed into some freak. Now, he has this great power and plans to do some really bad things with it. Now, here I am, sucked in this cloud and am being confronted by Bhyrun. Luckily, he tried firing something at me and it doesn't look like it did anything too serious to me."

The Ghost Boy was now pacing around the small white area, still trying to keep track of everything that just happened. "Skyler also seems to have the power to turn anyone into a monster or something like that, and that's going to cause some real trouble for me if I don't find a way to get him to stop. And now I somehow got sucked into that giant cloud, so does that mean I'm inside it now? Yes…I definitely have to be inside of it. But Bhyrun…I've seen him before."

Danny was halted in mid-speech by the sound of footsteps coming his way. He looked over, and a little more light started to fill up the darkened area. Bhyrun was there, and he was holding a man by the shirt collar. Not surprisingly, the man looked terrified.

"This person was unfortunate enough to be out in the streets when I was looking down," Bhyrun said. "I brought him up here, just like I did you."

"Put him back!" Danny commanded, trying to sound tough and angry but actually being very scared. "He didn't do anything! Leave him alone!"

Bhyrun began laughing to himself, making the civilian look even more terrified. After a short while, he said, "I think it will be up to _you_ whether or not pain comes to him!"

Saying this, Bhyrun threw the man down on the floor and he landed with a hard bang. He slowly started getting up, but Bhyrun held out his hand and started forming a ball of energy in it that looked exactly the same color as the ray he had just tried firing at Danny.

"Don't do it, Bhyrun!" Danny yelled. He saw that Bhyrun was going to fire the same ray on the person that he had just been attacked with.

But the attempt was vain. Bhyrun fired the ray at the person, and it didn't take long for him to start reacting. The civilian began screaming in pain as Danny began watching in horror.

The person was screaming as he dropped on to the floor. Suddenly, weird noises were coming from him. Scrunching noises. He looked like he was in great pain, and suddenly his skin changed color to dark red. Claws grew from his fingernails, and his eyes turned to green slits. He grew taller and taller until his clothes split off of him and wings sprouted from his back. In no time, Danny was staring face to face with another Bhyspawn.

"_So, that IS what that ray can do,"_ Danny thought to himself as he stared at the newly created monster in front of him. _"That guy and Skyler can turn people into Bhyspawn whenever they want! But, why didn't that ray work on me? How come it didn't turn ME into Bhyspawn like it did everyone else?"_

Bhyrun started chuckling. He watched in amusement as Danny continued to have a non verbal stand off with the Bhyspawn as both of them stared at each other without moving.

"So, Ghost Child," Bhyrun said in a mischievous way, "what are you going to do? This Bhyspawn can tear you limb from limb in a matter of seconds, but you've demonstrated that you're powerful enough to defeat one even faster than it could finish you."

Danny didn't say anything. He just continued to stare right into the green, vicious eyes of the Bhyspawn in front of him that was a human just a minute before.

"Do you want to save you self from this Bhyspawn? You can save yourself from it quite easily; all you have to do is kill it. But, do you want to save yourself, knowing you did it at the expense of a person's life?"

Danny was fueling with rage now. Like Bhyrun said, he could kill the Bhyspawn (therefore killing a person) and save himself, or he could let himself be torn apart.

"Choose, Ghost Child," Bhyrun said. "That Bhyspawn looks very hungry right now…"

Danny continued to remain still. Neither he nor the Bhyspawn did anything to provoke an attack. Abruptly, Danny turned to Bhyrun. Less than a half-second after he turned towards Bhyrun, he fired a strong blast of ectoplasma at him.

Bhyrun got knocked on the ground and made a low moaning sound, but it was only a few seconds before he was back up on his feet like nothing had ever happened to him.

"Well done, Ghost Boy," Bhyrun snickered. "Now it's my turn."

Bhyrun held out his hand and opened it up, facing the open part towards Danny. He started to form a black ball of energy in it, and even though it looked no different than a regular ball of energy (except for being black), Danny could tell this one had much more energy in it than a regular one.

Without warning, Bhyrun fired the blast of energy at Danny. The blast sent Danny flying back several feet and slammed him on to the ground with enough force to kill just about anything smaller than a fully grown bear.

Danny fell on the ground with a loud gasp, and then a quiet moan. His eyes were closed, and he lay on the ground completely motionless. His pulse and heart rate had stopped, and every muscle in his body relaxed. There were no signs of life from him at all. As he lay on the ground, a white circle appeared around his midsection and traveled up and down his body, transferring him back into his human form. He looked like he had just been in a bar fight and lost.

Bhyrun chuckled, and then made a gesture for the Bhyspawn to leave. Obeying its master, the Bhyspawn walked back into the darkness without as much as a grunt.

Bhyrun walked over to Danny's body as it lay on the cold floor.

"And you thought you were strong," Bhyrun said. "A teenaged ghost thinking he can take on me. Didn't you know who I am, kid?...hmm, something's not right here. This kid looks familiar. He kinda looks like…"

Bhyrun stopped talking as he continued looking at Danny's body as it continued to lie on the floor like a rag doll. After a long silence, Bhyrun said, "Well, I got no more use for this piece of flesh. If he's dead, then I can't do anything more with him. Might as well get rid of him now."

Bhyrun looked at a spot on the floor, and without even doing anything, he used his powers to make a hole in the floor appear. Bhyrun looked down at the ground hundreds of feet below him.

After staring at the ground below, Bhyrun went over to Danny and picked his body up. He carried it over to the hole in the floor of the cloud, and then heartlessly dropped him out. Bhyrun watched with pleasure as he saw Danny's body quickly descend to the ground below.

"That kid should have known he couldn't have lived against that blast of mine. That's the most powerful attack I've got. There's no way he could have lived through that one."

Bhyrun continued watching until Danny's body was so close to the ground he couldn't see it. He then closed up the hole in the cloud and was once again alone in the darkness of it. Shortly after he closed it, a thought came to him. His evil, smiling face turned to a grimace.

"Of course, I suppose there is that _one_ way that Ghost Boy could have survived that blast…"


	17. Clinging On

"_His eye twitched!"_

"_I think his hands are moving!"_

"_His chest is moving up and down. He must be breathing again."_

Danny slowly opened his eyes and saw a great blur in front of him. He couldn't tell what was around him if he tried. The only thing he could tell was that there were two people looming over him, and those people were his two best friends. Despite his blurred vision, he could see both of them were relieved.

"Ugh…what happened?" Danny asked. He blinked fast a few times as his vision continued to improve by the second. He sat up when he could clearly see everything a few seconds later. He saw that he was sitting on a bed in his hotel room, with Sam and Tucker standing up and hovering over him.

Tucker and Sam looked like a giant weight was lifted off their shoulders. They breathed a heavy sigh of relief when Danny was sitting up and talking again.

"Tucker saw you fall from the sky!" Sam yelled. "We saw you land on the ground and thought you had fallen from some place and killed yourself!"

"Yeah man," Tucker said. "What happened? How'd you suddenly plummet on the ground out of nowhere?"

Danny groaned again, than tried to clarify everything. "You saw me fall from the sky and just land on the ground?"

"Yeah," Tucker verified.

"We thought you died or something like that."

Danny gave a small smile to that remark. "Don't worry, I'm still alive. I just wish I knew what happened."

"So do we," Tucker said. "Sam and I want to know what happened! How'd you get up so high anyway, and why'd you fall?"

Danny put a hand on top of his throbbing head. Despite falling several hundred feet, there were no signs of serious injuries on him anywhere. He tried to recall the events that just took place.

"Okay, here's what I remember," Danny started. "I saw Skyler going around being a total jerk, so I tried to go fight him. But, I ended up losing the fight, but instead of finishing me, Skyler instead said something to that giant, black cloud. Then, he flew up there and passed _through_ the cloud. Almost immediately after that, a patch opened up in the cloud, and I got sucked up in there like some giant magnet was pulling me up."

"So let me get this straight," Tucker said. "After you lost to Skyler, Skyler flew up into the air and passed through the cloud. After that, the cloud opened up and something pulled you up towards the cloud and inside it?"

"That's right," Danny coolly said, looking away. "Anyway, when I got up there, I was in this pitch black room except for a little patch of light I was sitting in. Then, this guy was walking around, and he said his name was Bhyrun."

"Bhyrun?" Sam asked. "Isn't that what that Skyler guy said was the name of the cloud? Are you sure you weren't dreaming?"

"I'm positive," Danny bluntly replied. "We had a chit chat for a little while, and then he tried firing some dark red laser at me. When nothing happened, Bhyrun walked away and apparently abducted the first person he saw on the streets. He brought the guy up to the cloud and fired the same ray at the dude he abducted."

"And…what happened?" Tucker said in suspense.

"The guy Bhyrun abducted turned into the same monster that I had to fight several times last night. I think that's what the ray can do."

"But that doesn't make any sense," Sam said, jumping in. "If that ray can turn people into those monsters, then how come it didn't work on you!"

"I don't know!" Danny yelled, starting to get irritated. He sprung off the bed and started pacing around the hotel room with his hands on his hips as he looked down at the floor. "If I remember correctly, Bhyrun wanted me to…no, he _dared_ me to save myself from getting mauled by that newly created monster of his by attacking it and killing it. The only problem is that if I killed it, then I would have killed a person."

"Then what did you do?" Tucker asked.

"I tried to throw a surprise attack at Bhyrun," Danny replied. "I sent my strongest blast at him, hoping to catch him off guard and give me the advantage. But, it doesn't look like my powers are much of a threat to him, because he didn't act like he got hurt by them at all…he answered by firing his strongest blast at me. And that's the last thing I remember."

"That must have been when you fell from the sky," Sam said. "So, what are you going to do now? Now that Skyler's on the loose and you've met that Bhyrun guy, you can't honestly hope to just sit here and do nothing!"

"I know, Sam," Danny replied, slumping on his bed and hiding his head in his hands, "but there is still so much I don't know. Like, who is this Bhyrun guy? And more importantly, what do I have to do to stop him? And what does Skyler plan on doing, and how do I stop whatever he has cooked up? On top of that, how did I survive Bhyrun's attack up in that cloud? And how do I destroy the cloud at all? And of all people, why won't Bhyrun's mutation ability work on me!"

Danny was breathing heavy and was practically giving himself a headache. He looked up and saw the concerned faces of Sam and Tucker, and then just moaned. "So much stuff that I don't know…how am I supposed to stop Bhyrun and Skyler when I don't even know what they plan on doing?"

"Uh, speaking of Skyler…" Sam said nervously.

Danny looked up and saw that Sam was now staring out a window. He looked pretty nervous about something, and when Danny ran over, he could see why. A few yards away from the hotel and very high in the air, Skyler was flying around in his demonic-looking form. His sharp, M shaped wings were terrifying anyone who wasn't already scared of his dark red, monster-like physical appearance.

"Gah! Can't I get ONE second to think!" Danny yelled. He turned into his ghost form and flew out the window in a flash of fury. He was sick and tired of dealing with Skyler over and over, and hoped that this would have to be his last time.

Danny flew up to Skyler and didn't even say something to grab Skyler's attention; he simply launched a ball of energy at him.

Skyler was distracted from what he was doing and knocked to the ground, but he didn't seem to be in a lot of pain.

"I've grown stronger with Bhyrun!" Skyler yelled. His sharp wings were flapping quicker now, and Danny was getting nervous just looking at him. "Do you still think I am a madman after your encounter with Bhyrun? Do you doubt his awesome power now?"

"Okay, he's strong!" Danny admitted. "And you injected Bhyrun's matter into you, so now _you're_ strong! There! Can we end this!"

Skyler held out his hand and fired a blast from his palm, nailing Danny only inches below his throat. Danny was knocked to the ground, and Skyler gracefully hovered his way over there and grabbed Danny by the neck and pulled him up so they were eye-level with each other.

"I've had just about enough of you!" Skyler said.

"What a coincidence, so have I!" Danny retorted as he struggled to breathe. Skyler's grip was amazingly strong, and Danny could barely move. "Uh, dude, you're going to snap my neck."

Skyler didn't say anything. He just tightened his grip. It seemed breaking Danny's neck was precisely what he wanted: a quick and painful way to get rid of his only distraction so he could attain all of Bhyrun's power.

"Can't…breathe…" Danny moaned as Skyler's rock-solid grip continued to choke him. Danny could feel his face turning blue and not much oxygen was getting to his brain, so he had an even harder time trying to come up with something to help him escape. Finally, he tried something.

Danny mustered up all the strength on his lower body and sent his leg flying up with the most strength he had. He kicked Skyler in the spot where "guys don't like to be hit".

Skyler moaned briefly in pain as he tried to recover from the blow to his crotch Danny gave. In the process, he dropped Danny on to the ground. Danny jumped up into the air and began charging up an attack.

It didn't take long for Skyler to regain himself, though. In a matter of seconds, he was acting like nothing happened and saw Danny's charged ghost attack, ready to be launched at him.

"So, you want a fight, huh?" Skyler said. He showed Danny both of his hands, and in a swift moment, they turned darker red and started having power form in both of them. "I'll give you a fight! And I'll make sure this is a good fight for you, because it's going to be your la-"

Skyler got blasted in the face in mid speech. "Talk too much, and you're gonna lose," Danny snidely warned.

Just as he began laughing to himself for that remark, Danny got blasted by Skyler while he was still on the ground. Danny was sent flying backwards with the force from the blast and smashed into a tree behind him.

Danny moaned, but instantly got up and started fighting back. He flew over to Skyler and gave him three solid punches in the stomach before topping it off with a blast to his face.

Skyler was on the ground from this, and Danny was standing with his hands on his hips in victory. "Time to finish this, Skyler. It's over."

Danny prepared the strongest blast of energy he could form in his hand. He aimed it at Skyler's head and was prepared to end this final fight between the two new enemies.

Just as Danny fired it, Skyler delivered a kick right to Danny's nose and knocked him off balance. The ray Danny just formed in his hand went flying away into the sky until it pierced a regular cloud and went through it.

Danny was trying to get back on track from the surprise kick, but Skyler would have nothing to do with that. He ran over to Danny and punched him once in the nose, and then blasted him in the stomach with some energy from his hand.

Danny screamed in pain, but suffered another blow in a split second. Skyler elbowed Danny as hard as he could on the back of Danny's neck, causing Danny to go plummeting to the ground in pain.

Danny was now lying on his front, almost helpless. Skyler, on the other hand, was feeling more full of himself, as he had just about finished Danny.

"You were saying something about finishing this?" Skyler snootily said as he observed Danny lying on the ground stiff as a board. "I couldn't agree more. Time to get you out of my way, and Bhyrun's way, once and for a-"

Skyler was suddenly slammed by someone, or something, from side. He was sent flying to the side with so much force that someone would think he had just been rammed by an invisible pick up truck.

Danny looked over and saw what looked like a regular person, but there was one very disturbing feature about him: he was wearing a mask.

At first, Danny didn't think too much of it, but when after a while, Danny thought it was pretty peculiar. The figure was tall, was obviously a guy, but he had his entire face (except for his mouth and everything under it) hidden by a gold mask.

"Leave him alone!" the figure commanded with determination and assertion in his voice. He walked over to Skyler and pulled a giant sword out from a sheath he had built on his pants. The sword looked like it was regular when it was being made, but there was a gold light surrounding the blade of it.

Skyler gasped when he saw the masked figure. He didn't seem to have any cleared idea of who the person was than Danny did, but he looked like he was scared of whoever the person was.

The masked person went over to Skyler and slashed at him with the sword he just unsheathed. Skyler seemed to suffer a LOT from this, as he started screaming in so much pain that Danny thought Skyler was going to break out into tears.

Without doing anything else, Skyler sprouted his sharp wings and started flying away. The masked figure just stared as he watched Skyler fly further and further away. Once Skyler was a good distance away, the figure turned around and looked at Danny as he lay on the ground.

The figure gently walked over to Danny and knelt down beside him.

"You okay?"

Danny didn't respond; he could only grunt. He forced his way up until he could support himself on his legs again. Once he was standing up, he moaned and started scratching the back of his head.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Thanks," Danny said, not looking at the figure. It was another few seconds before Danny looked at him and had confusion written all over his face.

_Some random guy with a sword and a mask shows up just ask Skyler is about to finish me, and his sword seems to hurt Skyler a lot more than my attacks? What's up with that?_, Danny thought to himself as he stared at the figure for the first time. _I've definitely heard his voice before; he sounds way too familiar for it to be a coincidence. Who is this guy?_


	18. Teaming Up

Danny continued to watch as Skyler flew further and further away. Skyler had just been scared off by a mysterious masked man who jumped out in front of him and pulled out a sword. The guy looked like he could pose a threat to Skyler.

"Who the heck are you, anyway?" Danny asked the masked stranger as he started getting up from the ground. In no time, he was staring face to face with the masked man.

"What just happened?" the man asked.

"Huh?" Danny asked. "Well, that guy you just attacked-Skyler-, was a scientist until just a few days ago. He injected himself with material from the black cloud up in the sky and he turned into that thing as a result."

"That dark cloud?" the man asked. "You mean that one?". He pointed to the giant, black cloud that had been hovering in the air for the past few days.

"Yeah, that's the one," Danny answered.

The man looked up at the cloud with curiosity. Danny thought he heard the masked guy mutter something as he stared up at the cloud.

"Did you say something?"

"Bhyrun," the masked man said. "You know that cloud up there? That's Bhyrun."

"Let me ask you something," Danny started, "Do you know what that cloud is or what it's doing?"

"The cloud is Bhyrun," the masked man replied. "At least, that's the name of the one inside it."

"I had met him face to face a little while ago," Danny said. "He had power greater than anything I've ever seen."

"Bhyrun is a very powerful figure," the masked person said. "Do you have any idea why you're still alive after you just got attacked by him?"

"No, I don't," Danny said. "I don't know who that Bhyrun guy is, what he wants to do, how I survived his attack, or any of that. I don't even know who _you_ are."

"As well you shouldn't," the stranger said. "All you need to know right now is that I'm the only one who can defeat Bhyrun, but I'm going to need your help to do it."

"Why me?" Danny asked. "You're telling me to help you defeat that Bhyrun dude, but you won't even tell me who you are! How does that make sense?"

The masked stranger didn't respond to what Danny said. He slowly took a step closer to Danny and started talking. "Do you have any idea on Bhyrun's history?"

Danny paused and looked away for a moment. A second later, he looked back towards the masked person. "No."

The masked person pinched his two lips together and looked like he was about to do something he really didn't want to do. "How can you honestly hope to defeat Bhyrun if you don't even know his history?"

"I don't know," Danny yelled.

The man behind the mask seemed a little concerned about this. He looked nervous that Danny had no idea of anything about Bhyrun's past, but then realized that maybe Danny had no reason to know anything about Bhyrun.

"I'll do it," Danny finally said after a long, awkward silence.

"What are you talking about?"

"If I'm the only one who can help you defeat Bhyrun," Danny said, "then I'll do it."

Danny saw the guy smile at this decision. "That is a good decision you have made. Let's go to a secluded place so we can talk about how we're going to attack Bhyrun and finish him for good."

"Wait!" Danny yelled when the man was turning around to lead Danny to an isolated area where they could talk privately without attracting any attention. "Since I don't know anything about Bhyrun's past, would you mind filling me in? Or were you asking me because you didn't know either?"

The person stopped and turned around. He looked at Danny and walked over to him. "I know a bit of Bhyrun's history," the figure said. "I've done research, and I'm convinced that you are the only one who has the abilities to stop Bhyrun if my research is correct."

"All right," Danny said. "Can you tell me about him, then?"

"Absolutely," the figure whispered. "It's kind of a long story, though."

"After putting up with _Great Expectations_ in Lancer's class for three months, I'm used to long stories."

"Very well. The story begins in the year 1368, to a time when priests were the most powerful and most respected of all the people."

"1368. That was when Skyler said Bhyrun came into power."

"Then he was probably accurate in _his_ research," the person said. "But anyway, Bhyrun is actually an evil sorcerer from that time period. His path to being an evil sorcerer was a long and painful one."

"Let me guess: it was the same way Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader?"

"I have no clue what that means," the figure said. "Now please, don't interrupt me again. Bhyrun was a mage back then, just like a few other people were. However, there was a time when war came and all the mages of the city were not able to keep peace in the city. Bhyrun was captured, and was forced to turn the side of the enemy city. He was forced to use his powers to bring the enemy city to victory, or else they would torture him and take his life."

"So, Bhyrun was forced by the enemies to use his powers to destroy his home city?" Danny asked, trying to make sure he understood everything.

"Correct," the masked figure replied. "After seeing what great power he had, Bhyrun realized how much he loved using his power for his own purposes. In no time, he was using his powers for revenge, wealth, or simply to make people suffer. He grew more and more evil by the day until he got to where he is now."

"Wait a minute! That leaves a lot of loose ends!" Danny yelled. "That barely explains anything about the cloud or anything like that. And how come you and I are the only ones who can stop him!"

"If I had time to answer those questions, I would," the person replied. "But right now, we need to find Bhyrun and finish him once and for all, so he can make no more people suffer the way he has!"

"Uh…all right, whatever you say," Danny nervously said.

Saying this, the mysterious masked man ascended into the air and started flying. That left Danny speechless as he stared at the person as he continued to rise in the air.

"I didn't know you could fly!" Danny yelled. "You can fly, you can tell me stuff about Bhyrun, and by swinging a sword you can scare off Skyler. What else can you do?"

The figure didn't respond with anything except, "Hurry, we're losing time! Bhyrun could be doing anything now!"

Danny just grunted, and then started flying up into the air with the strange man. The two of them started flying around, looking for Bhyrun. They didn't find him, but they found the next best thing.

The two of them stopped in mid air. They saw a floating demonic-looking creature. The creature had a human appearance, but looked dark red and had sharp wings. It looked like a male, dark red harpy.

"No, not him again," Danny moaned. It was Skyler, obviously. "Am I going to have to fight this guy on an hourly basis or something? I'm really getting sick of him."

Skyler was flying around and sending blasts of energy down at people, mainly for his own amusement.

"Was that the one who just attacked you?" the masked man asked.

"Yeah," Danny said. "The guy you just saved me from a few minutes ago."

"We can't expect to defeat Bhyrun with a pest like him in the way. Come on, we must go and do unto him the pain that he has caused others!"

"Dude, are you from the middle ages or something?" Danny asked. "You don't have to talk all fancy to sound heroic. Try saying something like 'Let's go beat the tar out of him'. It sounds more natural."

The masked man didn't say anything to that smart remark Danny just made. The two of them flew over to Skyler as he continued attacking whatever was in his way.

When the two were right in front of him, they saw Skyler was hovering over a small dog that was obviously scared of him. The dog looked like it was younger than a year old, and it was a black Labrador Retriever. The poor dog was whining and trying to brace itself with giant, sad, scared brown eyes. Skyler had a huge ball of energy in his hand and he was pointing it at the dog, ready to blow the defenseless creature to pieces.

Just as Skyler was ready to destroy the dog, Danny fired a blast of energy at Skyler's head, causing him to release his formed ball of energy harmlessly into the air. "Hey, you stupid mutt, why don't you go bury something and stay away from him!" Danny yelled.

Skyler turned around and saw Danny and the masked person floating in the air, both ready to attack. He began scowling and started to get ready to attack both of them.

"That last comment was directed to you and not the dog, just to let you know," Danny said to him as Skyler began charging up his attack.

Before Skyler could finish preparing his attack and blasting it, the masked man went up to Skyler quicker than Danny could see it. The man was flying right in front of Skyler, so Danny couldn't really see what was happening. All he saw was what looked like a giant burst of golden light between the two, and Skyler was sent backwards, screaming in pain.

Danny gasped when he saw the light and Skyler getting hurt by it. Danny tried to figure out what that light was, but he wanted to take full advantage of Skyler being knocked off guard.

Danny flew over and fired a blast of ectoplasma at Skyler's head, which of course put him in more pain. But, it didn't take long for Skyler to regain himself and get back in the fight.

Skyler immediately started forming a dark red blast in his hand, ready to launch at any given moment. Unfortunately for Danny, it didn't take nearly as long for Skyler to release the blast as he thought it would.

The blast of energy came at Danny so fast he didn't have time to move out of the way. It was going to hit him right in the face, but the masked man jumped in front of the blast just in time and took the attack instead of Danny.

The masked man moaned as he got hit, leaving Danny staring in awe. Danny had never had someone take a hit for him, and he now felt he owed the masked man something.

It wasn't a long time before the masked person recovered, and soon enough, both he and Danny started attacking Skyler relentlessly.

"Hmmm…I saw this in a video game once," Danny said as he and the masked man continued fighting Skyler. "Hey!" Danny yelled, trying to get his new ally's attention. "I'm gonna hit Skyler to you, you hit him back to me, I'll hit him back to you, and then I'll give him an uppercut so hard he'll think he had a wrecking ball dropped on him."

The masked person didn't know what Danny was getting at, but he agreed. Danny flew over to Skyler and punched him with so much force that Skyler got sent flying backwards, right towards the masked man. The masked man hit Skyler back towards Danny as the plan went, and then Danny countered by doing the same thing. It was like playing ping pong with a person.

When Skyler was hit back to the masked man for the second time, Danny flew towards the ground and landed on it. The masked man hit Skyler and sent him soaring to the ground towards Danny, where Danny concentrated all his energy on his fist, and as soon as Skyler was within arm's reach, Danny punched Skyler in the back as hard as he could. Skyler got sent flying several yards into the air, and then landed on the ground with a hard thud.

"Heh. And my mom said I wouldn't learn anything from video games," Danny remarked as he looked at Skyler on the ground.

But, Skyler got up much quicker than Danny anticipated. Skyler was obviously in a lot of pain, but he insisted on moving on.

"You're relentless," Danny said in fear to himself as he saw Skyler prepare a strong blast of energy in his hand, ready to fire at Danny.

Just as Skyler was about to fire it, a loud _chomp_ sound was heard and Skyler yelped in pain. He turned around, and the dog he was about to destroy was biting him in the butt.

"You stupid dog, let go of me!" Skyler yelled, trying to move around quickly so the dog would accidentally detach itself from Skyler. But it didn't work. The dog continued to keep a strong grip on Skyler's butt, not letting go no matter what.

Danny started bursting out in laughter as he saw Skyler struggling to get the biting dog off him and having no success. He was going to keep laughing about it until he heard the masked figure yell something to him.

"Hey, we're not here to laugh, we're here to finish him!"

Danny stopped laughing, but still kept the smile on his face. He fired one blast at Skyler's head, and it was a direct hit. Skyler was sent flying to the ground after taking Danny's energy stream to the head.

Skyler was no on the ground and the dog let go of him. The masked person dropped from the air and gently tapped himself onto the ground. No sooner did he do that did he walk over to Skyler and pull out his sword, ready to impale Skyler into the ground with it.

"Time to end your evil-doing," the masked man said bravely.

Skyler gasped in fear, and then shot into the air quicker than anyone could notice. He began flying away as fast and as far as he could. Danny wanted to follow him, but the masked man said that they should let him go for now.

"Well, I'll bet I'm going to have to fight him again in ten minutes," Danny said, breathing heavy after the fight. He and the masked man were now standing on the ground, exhausted but still determined to fight.

Danny looked down at the ground and saw the little dog that helped them in the battle by chomping down on Skyler's rear. The dog had its mouth open in a smile-shape and was panting with its tongue sticking out/ Danny smiled at the dog and bent down to start rubbing him.

"Good boy!" Danny said in baby talk. "You helped us beat that mean, mean scientist! Did you bite his butt? Did you bite his butt?"

Danny was going to continue rubbing and talking baby talk to the dog all day until the masked man cleared his throat. Danny turned towards him as the masked stranger said, "Are you done?"

"Yeah," Danny said. He turned his attention back to the dog and gave it one last pat on the head. "It's time for you to go home, okay?"

The dog, almost like it understood him, ran off after Danny told him to get back home. Danny smiled at the dog as he saw it running home, but his look turned serious a short while later. He stared at Skyler as Skyler continued to fly further and further away.

The masked stranger flew on the ground and stood right next to Danny. "We'll get him next time," he promised.


	19. Minor Annoyances

Danny was breathing as he watched Skyler continue to fly off. He had now fought Skyler an uncountable amount of times, and he was just about sick of it. The masked man, on the other hand, seemed quite interested in their opponent.

"Who was that?" the masked person asked.

"The guy we just fought?" Danny asked.

The masked man nodded.

"That's Skyler. He said he used to be a professor at M.I.T. and graduated for Oxford and Harvard."

"Do you know him personally?" the masked man asked.

Danny shook his head. "No. I know that because I went to a show he was putting on at a museum a few days ago, before the dark cloud appeared and before he went insane."

"_Before_ he went insane?" the masked man asked. "Are you saying there was a time when he was a normal human being?"

"Yeah. When the dark cloud appeared in the sky, he acted like he wanted me to help him destroy it."

"He knew _you_, then?" the masked man asked.

Danny didn't like how this guy continuously was asking questions. Danny didn't want to give away too much, revealing that he was really a fourteen-year old boy that had a split identity. After all, the masked man could mean nothing but trouble. But then again, maybe it would be helpful if the masked man knew Danny's true identity. After all, he definitely didn't _seem_ bad.

"No, he didn't know me," Danny replied. "I was flying around, trying to destroy the cloud, and after seeing I didn't have much luck with it, he said he wanted to try to help. He pulled out a giant laser and fired it at the cloud, and he could apparently take a sample of it. Now that Skyler had a sample of the cloud, he took it back to his laboratory and hoped to study it and find a weakness to it."

"Did exposure to the cloud's gases cause him to turn mutated?"

"No. As it turns out, he really wanted to discover the true potential of humans, so he instead took a needle and injected the matter from the cloud into himself. Since then, he's only become more and more powerful."

"I see," the masked person said. "So are you saying he got to be that powerful because of injecting himself with material from the cloud?"

"Yeah. At least, I'm pretty sure that's why he's so powerful."

"Well, this could be both good news and bad news," the masked figure said. "It's good news because I now know a way to weaken Bhyrun and decrease his power to the extent where it would be a fair fight between you and him."

"And what's the bad news?" Danny nervously asked.

"Well, now that Bhyrun is inside Skyler, a lot of Bhyrun's power is actually _in_ Skyler right now. Do you understand what I mean?"

"No. Not really."

The masked man groaned at having to explain it. "By injecting part of Bhyrun into himself, Skyler now actually has a lot of Bhyrun's powers. So now Bhyrun has power in two places, which could prove to be a disadvantage for us."

"I don't get it," Danny said. "Just how exactly do we make Bhyrun's power drop so he isn't so much of a problem."

The masked man sighed. "We're going to have to kill Skyler. Since Skyler has a lot of Bhyrun's powers, all those powers would go away if he died."

"I don't know," Danny nervously said. "I'm not big on the idea of taking somebody's life. Isn't there any other way we could get rid of Bhyrun's power without killing Skyler?"

"Well, we could always force him to give those powers up."

"How are we supposed to do that?"

"I don't know. That could be a huge difficulty if you don't want to kill him."

"We'll find a way," Danny promised. "There has to be a way we can get rid of that portion of Bhyrun's power without killing Skyler."

"If you say so," the masked man said. "All right, if we're going to get rid of Bhyrun's power without killing Skyler, we're going to have to do some research or some spying. You any good at that, kid?"

"I'm not bad," Danny said with a smile on his face. "And if anything ever happens, I can always go intangible and get out without any problems."

"That's good, because we're going to have to be doing a _lot_ of spying if we want to figure out a way to get rid of Bhyrun's power inside of Skyler without actually killing Skyler."

"Sounds great," Danny said. "When do we start?"

"I'd say now," the masked figure said.

Just as the two were about to leave, a loud roaring sound was heard from behind. Danny and the masked man turned around and saw a giant red monster standing right there.

"Oh, great," Danny complained. "More delays? All right, with you by my side, this thing should go down pretty easily."

The two of them immediately ran in and started charging at the monster. Danny started by firing a bolt of ghostly ectoplasma at the monster, and he succeeded in knocking it off balance.

The monster tumbled to the ground, and in no time, the masked man ran up to the monster and tried sticking his sword through the monster. However, the monster was able to roll out of the way just in time, and it was back on its feet.

But just as the monster was ready to launch another attack, the masked figure ran over to it and kicked it in the face as hard as he could. The monster got knocked back, but still was standing. When the masked man tried kicking the monster again, the monster grabbed the masked person's leg and lifted him up into the air. When the monster had a firm grip, it threw the masked man into the air as hard as it could.

The man behind the mask went flying into the air, and it looked like he would fall to the ground very hard and break a few bones, possibly die. When Danny saw the masked man start falling, he flew up into the air and caught him in mid-fall. Danny gently lowered the masked person and himself back onto the ground.

"Thank you," the masked figure said, then immediately returned to fighting.

Danny didn't waste any time either. He fired a blast of energy at the monster as soon as the masked man began charging, and the energy hit the monster right in the middle of his demonic-looking face.

The dark red monster got knocked back, and just as it was about to make a counterattack, the masked figure ran over to it and struck the monster over the head with his sword.

The monster fell to the ground in pain, as well as with a fairly huge gash across its head. Thick, dark red blood was pouring out of the monster's head as Danny ran over to it. He fired one last bit of green energy into the monster's gash and kept firing it in there for a long time.

Finally, the monster's head burst from all the energy Danny fired into the open wound. Monster blood splurted everywhere, as well as chunks of the monster's head.

Danny made a grossed out face when he saw the gruesome fate of that monster, but he was soon all smiles.

"We did it," Danny said with a smile on his face, breathing heavy for a little while. "That wasn't so hard now, was it?"

"No, it wasn't," the masked person said. He tried to act like what just happened to the demonic, red looking monster didn't bother him, but Danny could tell that he was grossed out by it.

"Well, now all we gotta do is do some research, find Skyler, and force him to give up his powers," Danny said. He immediately began walking away down the deserted road, now messy with the monster's thick blood all over it.

"But it still bothers me…" the masked person said. "What exactly was that monster, and how did it get here?"

Danny's smile immediately went away and a huge look of concern passed over his face.

_Oh, no,_ Danny thought to himself after the masked man asked that question. _Don't tell me…if it was, I'll never forgive myself!_

"Uh...funny you should mention it," Danny said with a nervous, yet upset smile on his face. "You know, I might actually know what that monster was."

"Really?" the man asked with excitement rising in his normally calm voice.

"I'm pretty sure I know," Danny said.

Just as Danny was about to say what he thought the monster they just killed was, another roaring sound was heard. The roaring caused both of them to jump, and when they turned around, there was another one of the monsters they had just fought staring at them, ready for a fight.

"Yes, I think I know what it is," Danny moped.

"Tell me afterwards!" the masked figure commanded. "For now, let's destroy this one, too!"

"I'm not sure you want to do that," Danny warned.

But it was too late. The masked man was already right in front of the monster, swinging his sword at the creature's face as he tried his best to wipe its existence from the earth. Danny groaned, then went in and started attacking the monster as weakly as he possibly could.

Sadly for Danny, it was no use. No matter what he said, he didn't think the masked man would lighten up on the monster, even if he knew the monster was what Danny thought it was.

Watching the vicious battle take place, Danny nervously grit his teeth together and started fiercely rubbing his hand through his bright-white hair. He didn't want to have to fight the monster, knowing of the disastrous results that could happen if his thought on what he was attacking was correct.

Danny just watched the fight play out until the masked man got struck in the stomach by the monster's fist, and he was knocked to the ground, unable to get up for a while. The monster showed the masked man its sharp claws, and then raised them up in the air, getting ready to slice the masked person into several pieces.

It was now or never. Danny had to determine which life had more value. Thinking out of instinct and trying to protect his new ally, he fired a blast of green ectoplasma at the monster, just as it was about to pierce its claws right through the masked man's skin.

The monster was knocked onto the ground after Danny blasted it, and the masked man got up less than a second later. In one swift motion, he stuck his sword through the monster's torso and yanked it out as hard as he could. There was thick blood all over the sword, but the masked man didn't seem to care.

Danny was staring at the now dead monster as it began to disappear. He almost felt like crying, due to how much he feared his premonition on what the monster really was, was indeed correct.

Danny slowly walked over to the monster as it continued disappearing, and just as he was about to say something to the masked man, Danny thought he heard a small chuckle. He looked up to the masked man and gave him that "did-you-hear-that" look.

Silence. The two continued to stare at each other for a while until the laugh again.

"Do you hear that?" the masked figure asked.

Danny nodded his head. He was glad to know he wasn't hearing things. The laughing got louder and louder, until the two could clearly hear where it was coming from. It was coming from behind them, and the laugh got louder and more malicious.

Danny was now very nervous. He thought killing the monsters was now a very bad idea, and now that two monsters were dead, he heard evil laughing from behind. An all-too familiar laugh.


	20. The Biggest Obstacle Yet

The two of them slowly turned around, and Danny's worst fears came true. The laugh was coming from precisely who he thought it was.

"Well done, Ghost Child," said the laughing figure behind them. It was Skyler, and he looked even more wicked and demonic than ever. "Surely you know what things you truly just killed?"

"Please don't tell me that those things were actual people," Danny moaned, putting a sad and nervous expression on his face.

Skyler began laughing. Danny guessed he knew what that meant. "Of course those were real people. Beings like that simply don't pop out of the sky and attack. Certainly you knew that?"

"You know, the more evil you become, the more snobby and obnoxious you get!" Danny spat.

Skyler only just laughed at that comment. "Well, you two have provided me much amusement over the past few hours. But, now, I think you've gotten in my hair one time too many. It's time for both of you to become that which you have fought and destroyed!"

Skyler held out both of his hands and started charging up an attack in each of them. He aimed both of his hands at Danny and the masked man. Danny clearly had terror in his eyes, but the masked figure's expression was harder to read. However, by his mouth shape, it was easy to see that he, too, was terrified of what Skyler was about to do.

Skyler finally fired the ray and hit both Danny and the masked person in the chest. They both got sent flying backwards, but the ray didn't hurt so much. Danny and the masked man looked at each, confused.

Skyler also seemed to look fairly confused about what was happening. "Why have you two not turned into Bhyspawn! How come you aren't one of those monsters ready to rip someone's head off!"

"Good question," Danny said. But a second after saying that, a few thoughts started running through Danny's head. _That IS a good question. Why didn't that guy or I turn into a Bhyspawn? I thought it was because I was a ghost, but that can't be right. If that were right, then the masked dude would turn into a Bhyspawn. He's not a ghost…_

"Why didn't you get hurt or turn into a Bhyspawn from that blast?" Danny said as he turned over to the masked figure.

"I…don't know," the masked person said.

"Enough talk!" Skyler yelled. "Now that I know both of you are my true enemies after that failed attempt to turn you into Bhyspawn, I will finish you right here and now!"

Danny gasped as Skyler began charging at him. Danny went intangible just in time, and just as Skyler realized what happened, he turned around. He saw the masked figure had pulled out his sword and was now ready to impale him with it.

In a split second, Skyler sprouted his sharp wings and flew out of the way just in time. The masked man gasped when he realized Skyler could fly. As the figure grunted, he looked over and yelled, "Danny, up into the air!"

The two of them started soaring in the air and were now eye level with Skyler, but they were nervous about confronting him like this. He seemed to be getting more and more powerful every time he had to fight him.

After a while, Skyler finally had enough of it. He shot himself very high into the air in the blink of an eye, and started using both of his hands to charge up an attack that Danny could tell was going to be devastating.

"Oh man, this is gonna hurt!" Danny whined when he saw Skyler as he was ready to release the giant amount of energy.

"Retreat!" ordered the masked man.

Danny looked at the masked man with a nervous face, but then nodded his head quickly. Less than a moment later, both Danny and the masked man made a quick jump to the side and just barely missed the destructive blast that Skyler had just launched from his hands.

Danny and the masked man both landed on the ground after making the huge jump, but they couldn't waste any time trying to get up. They started running down the ravished, empty streets as fast they could, but Skyler was in close pursuit.

The two continued to run as Skyler tried firing a few blasts of energy down at them, but after seeing how Danny and the masked stranger continued to dodge all the rays of energy he was firing at them, he saw that it was futile and instead tried using the things around him to attack.

Skyler was blasting road signs, billboards, traffic lights, just about anything that was elevated that could possibly fall and crush Danny and the masked man. After a while, Skyler finally got the edge and blasted at a huge branch on a tree around the road. The branch snapped from the tree and started tumbling towards Danny and the masked man.

Danny gasped, then quickly grabbed the masked man's arm. He made them both go intangible, and after the tree branch passed right through them and was now at their feet, Danny made both of them tangible again and continued running, with Skyler still in hot pursuit.

"You really are an annoying pair!" Skyler hissed as he continued flying through the air, chasing the fourteen-year old ghost boy and the mysterious person with a mask. "But I will end your annoying existences here and now!"

"You know, I don't think I've ever heard you say something original," Danny said, looking back at Skyler but still running. "If you're going to be a pain in the neck, can you at least be creative?"

Skyler responded to this by sending a blast of red and black energy at Danny's head, just barely missing him. Danny stopped taunting Skyler and instead turned his head forward and continued running.

The chase wore on for what seemed like forever. After running for a long time and having to dodge several traps on the road, Danny was running out breath and energy.

"Can't…go…on," Danny wheezed after Skyler continued chasing him faster than most Olympic Runners could move.

It looked like it was over for Danny until he heard someone yell, "Danny!"

Danny turned his head and saw Sam and Tucker hiding in an alleyway between two buildings behind a trash dumpster. Danny opened his mouth and gave them a you-shouldn't-be-here look.

Danny finally made up his mind. He stopped in mid run and grabbed the masked man's arm. He made them both go intangible and passed through the broken up, cracked pavement beneath them. He floated through the dried tar and cement as he floated back up through the surface and standing right next to Sam and Tucker with the mysterious stranger, as well as doing a good job throwing Skyler off the trail.

"What are you guys doing here!" was the first thing Danny said when he was sure Skyler was out of earshot. "You have any idea how dangerous it is standing out here with a maniac like Skyler on the loose?"

"Well, sorry for trying to help you find a place to hide just in case you ever needed it!" Sam said, annoyed.

"Uh, who's the trick-or-treater?" Tucker asked in a rude way, pointing to the masked man.

"That's…uh,…you see, he…he's saved me a few times today," Danny said, trying to squeak out whatever the most appropriate term for what the masked man did.

"He saved you?" Tucker asked.

"Yeah. Skyler was about ready to have my head, but this guy just popped out of nowhere and helped me fight him off. Since then, Skyler has just shown up over and over and over again."

"I can't believe that guy," Sam sighed, looking down at the ground. "How can he still be trying to fight? Exactly how many times does he plan on popping out of nowhere before one of you dies?"

"I think _until_ one of us dies," Danny mumbled lowly.

"Just what exactly happened over the past few ours?" she continued asking.

Danny took a deep breath in and prepared to explain everything. "A little while ago, as I was saying, Skyler and I were in the middle of a fight. Skyler got the upper hand and he was ready to blow me to Kingdom Come. Just as I was about to get killed, this masked guy came out of nowhere and stopped Skyler at the last possible second."

"Who are you, anyway?" Tucker asked, looking at the masked person.

"Let Danny tell the story," the masked person insisted, completely ignoring Tucker's question.

"Anyway, ever since then we've done nothing except fight Skyler and try to figure out how to stop that Bhyrun guy. So far, we really don't have much of anything. Skyler tried firing the same ray to turn people into Bhyspawn at me and this guy, but neither of us turned into one."

"Neither of you turned into Bhyspawn?" Sam asked. "Even though you were hit by the same ray that turns everyone else into one? How does that make sense?"

"It doesn't," Danny replied.

"Maybe the guy in the mask is a ghost," Tucker suggested.

"You know, I actually thought of that," Danny confessed, slowly turning his attention towards the masked figure. "You're not a ghost, are you? Because if you are, I want you to tell me!"

The man behind the mask looked a little concerned (at least his mouth seemed to express worry and fear), but he said a short while later, "No, I'm not."

The four of them were quiet for a while. Nobody knew what to say or what to do. All four of them had their own separate thoughts about what was going on and what they needed to do to stop it.

"All right," Danny said. "How about I try recapping everything I need to do right now? Maybe that will help me think straight."

None of the other three seemed to have an objection.

"Okay," Danny started, "First of all, Skyler looks like he's a huge problem right now. After injecting himself with stuff from that dark cloud, he's become super powerful and is now the biggest obstacle in the way of destroying Bhyrun and the cloud. Once Skyler is out of the way, everything will be easier."

"Why's that?" Tucker asked.

"Skyler is now where most of the dark cloud's power is," Danny said. "If Skyler loses his power, then that will mean most of the cloud's power is gone."

"But how does that tie into making Bhyrun weaker?" Tucker once again asked.

"The cloud _is_ Bhyrun," the masked man coolly replied. "Destroying Skyler will get rid of most of Bhyrun's power, making him easy to finish and to get everything back to normal."

"I told you, I'm _not_ killing him!" Danny yelled. "As nutty as he may be, he's still a living person, and I don't want to kill any more people than I already have."

"Don't go making it harder than it already is for yourself, Danny," Sam sympathetically said. "You know what you have to do. If you have to kill Skyler, do it. Besides, if he's out of the way, you'll be able to attack Bhyrun himself and put this entire thing behind you. You've got enough problems as it is."

"Yeah, but Bhyrun shouldn't be a huge problem," Tucker said. "You know, since that ghost ray thing that turns people into those weird Bhyspawn things doesn't work."

"What would make you think it didn't work?" Danny asked, crossing his arms.

"Come on, how can it work if it didn't turn you or this weird guy into Bhyspawn?"

"I've been wondering that myself," said a cold voice from behind. The four turned around and saw a figure with dark red mist coming out from behind him. He looked like a mix between a person and a dark red (with black spots) dinosaur, and he had sharp wings that were keeping him levitated in the air.

"Skyler!" Danny hissed with fury.

"I've been wondering why my ray hasn't worked as well," Skyler said with an evil smile on his face.

"Yeah dude, I think you need to get it repaired or something," Tucker remarked. "I think it's broken or something."

"Well, there's only one way to find out," Skyler said. Faster than anyone could react, Skyler fired the dark ray at Sam and Tucker.

Both of them started screaming, and they fell on the ground with their hands supporting them. After just a few seconds of screaming, their screams turned more into roars, and their skin turned dark red. They grew to about six feet in a few seconds, and claws appeared on the hands and feet. Sharp fangs replaced their regular teeth, and their eyes turned threatening green.

"They're…Bhyspawn," Danny whimpered, looking at the monsters that were his friends only seconds ago.

Skyler started laughing. "Yes! _Now_ I know why the ray didn't work on you two! Bhyrun will make sure you two are the first to die when his reign begins!"

Danny didn't say anything. He continued looking at the two Bhyspawn in front of him. He knew there was no getting through to them, no matter how hard he tried to convince them to not rip him apart.

"You're not letting your friendship get in the way of your safety, are you, Ghost Child?" Skyler sneered. "Well, I'm out of here to report everything to Bhyrun. You can fight these Bhyspawn if you want, or if you don't want to get devoured by them."

Skyler shot away and was soon out of sight. Danny still didn't look at him; he continued to keep his eyes on the Bhyspawn in front of him that were Sam and Tucker. Now, Danny had a mission to cause Skyler to lose all of his power and to finish Bhyrun, but now he might have to kill Sam and Tucker (as Bhyspawn) to do it.

The two Bhyspawn stared at Danny, wanting nothing more than to make a jigsaw puzzle out of him.


	21. Discussing Plans

Danny was sweating nervously and rapidly as he stared at the newly created Bhyspawn in front of him what were Sam and Tucker a moment ago. The Bhyspawn started snarling as he slowly began to back away, not taking his eyes off them.

Suddenly, the Bhyspawn made a quick move and jumped right in front of Danny after he had backed away a foot or so. He jumped out of surprise when the two beasts were ready to start clawing him up.

"Calm down, you guys," Danny nervously said in a panicked voice. He gently put his hands out with his palms facing downwards as he simultaneously raised them up and down. "It's me, Danny. Remember? Your friend?"

The two Bhyspawn's only reply to this was a loud roar in Danny's face, causing his hair to get blown back and to have spit fly all over him.

"…or not?"

"They've lost the humanity to listen to your words!" the masked swordsman warned. "Let's hurry up and get out of here!"

"All right," Danny said in less than half a second. He got ready to fly off until one the Bhyspawn (the one that had been Tucker a short while ago) grabbed at his leg and pulled him to the ground, just as he was taking off.

Danny screamed, and then grunted as he struggled to get the new Bhyspawn shaken from his leg. After trying to pull his leg out from the Bhyspawn's grasp without much success, Danny did the one thing he did not want to do.

"Sorry, Tuck," Danny said in a low, but angry and determined voice. He fired a blast of ectoplasma into his friend's face.

The Bhyspawn screamed like a raging monster, but it let Danny go in the process. Danny flew away as fast as he could, much to the masked man's relief.

"All right!" yelled the masked person as Danny flew higher into the air with him. "Now let's go to some spot where neither Skyler nor Bhyrun can find us. We need to start discussing how we're going to finish off this thing once and for all!"

Danny nodded his head, but a huge problem popped into his head. "Where can we go? I don't know this neighborhood very well, and the only place I can think of is in my hotel room!"

"Then let's go to your hotel room," the masked person insisted.

Danny really didn't have any choice but to agree. There was nowhere else he knew of where he could hide from Bhyrun or Skyler. He began guiding the masked person through the air in the direction of the hotel, not really knowing what they were going to talk about there.

As Danny flew the masked man over to the hotel room where the three friends had been staying at, he looked at the cloud as he was flying by it. Then, everything that had happened that led up to this point started flowing through his head.

_Why did Tucker have to find that bottle in the water,_ Danny asked himself as he flew passed the cloud. _Why was he so stubborn on taking it when I told him to leave it in the lifeguard tower? Why did I trust Skyler when he asked me for help to attack that cloud?_

Danny began getting into even deeper depression. He recalled how on the first day of his vacation, he and Sam were on the beach talking about how great it was to be away from school and tests. Now look at him. He was fighting a giant, dark cloud, along with two new villains: a strange being that looked human, but Danny had a feeling he wasn't; the other was an insane scientist who insisted becoming powerful was the only way to get a human's full potential.

_Why did Toby have to be outside when that ghost attacked? Why did my dad have to make me baby-sit that night? Why couldn't Toby just leave the bottle alone like I asked? Why did the bottle have to smash open and cause all this?_

Danny's insides began filling with rage when he thought more and more about how if one small detail had changed in everything he just recapped, then he wouldn't have to be in this situation now.

Finally, the two made it to Danny's hotel room. Danny grabbed the man's arm and made them both go intangible as they passed through the window and back into the room. Even though Danny was only recently in there, it felt like forever since he had even seen it. The beds, the carpet, the room itself all looked completely new to him. The Nintendo 64 controllers were thrown on the floor, the beds were unmade, and there were a few sets of clothes lying around.

"Gee, this place sure feels empty without Sam and Tucker," Danny whined. He reverted back to his human form but kept the same sorry expression on his face.

"Being upset isn't going to bring those two back to their normal form. I'm sure you know that?" the masked person asked.

Danny slowly turned around. He stuttered for the longest time before he finally said, "Yeah."

The masked person sat down on one of the beds. His gold suit seemed to glisten in the small bits of sunlight coming in from the window outside. His mouth was still the only visible part of him, but the mouth revealed that the masked man himself was just as concerned as Danny was. Possibly more.

"Who _are_ you, anyway?" Danny said. He felt as if he simply had to ask that. His blue eyes were filled with confusion with a stone-serious expression on his tired face.

The masked figure looked up at the fourteen-year old, but stayed silent. "Danny, we have more important things to worry about, okay? You can trust me."

"All right," Danny said. "I really trust you."

"Then that's all we need to worry about right now," the masked person replied in an almost cold voice. "Now, we need to discuss how we plan on finishing Skyler and Bhyrun. Killing those two will ultimately guarantee the destruction of the giant cloud."

"That's great and all," Danny said annoyed, "but I've already told you, I'm not, I repeat, NOT killing Skyler. There has to be some other way to get him to lose all of his power without killing him."

"There is no other way!" the masked figure said. "If there was another way, I would know of it and do it myself. But right now, _you're_ the only one who can take down Skyler and Bhyrun permanently. The odds against all of this falling on _your_ shoulders is staggering; it's as if all this was destined to happen."

"Dude, what are you talking about?" Danny said in a confused, but angry voice. His fists were clenching up as the masked person continued to make absolutely no sense to him.

"If you do not know the answers now, you will in time," the masked person said.

"What's going on here?" Danny asked. "One moment you're acting like Mr. Big Show, and now you're talking like one of those NPCs in a Role-Playing game who speak in cryptic half-sentences and say the same thing, and don't even try to clarify it?"

"If you want to make jokes to silly games about this, we might as well end this discussion now. You and I are the only ones who can destroy this powerful being. I'm sure of it. All I'm doing is telling you what I need you to do so we can destroy Bhyrun forever."

"And_ I_ told you I'm not going to kill someone!"

"If that's what you insist on, then our discussion ends here."

Danny expected the masked man to start hovering in the air and leave the room, but he didn't. There was an extremely long and awkward silence after the masked man had decided Danny wasn't going to be of any more help.

After what seemed like the longest time, Danny finally sighed. He looked down at the floor and started rubbing his hand through his raven-black hair.

"I'll do it," he finally said.

"What was that?" the masked figure said as he looked up at Danny, making sure he understood what the Ghost Boy was saying.

"I'll do it," he repeated. "I'll kill Skyler if I have to."

"Where did this come from?"

"Don't get me wrong, I _hate_ the idea of having to kill another person. But, Skyler has already indirectly caused the deaths of several innocent people, and there's no telling how many people will die if Bhyrun gets stronger with Skyler. I'd rather be directly responsible for the death of one person than indirectly responsible for thousands of people…I guess."

The masked man smiled and he stood up. "Very well, then. You've made the best decision, Ghost Child. Together, I know we can take down Bhyrun and make sure he doesn't cause the deaths of any more people."

Danny sighed. He knew he was about to get himself into a huge battle, and any hopes for a relaxing vacation were now thrown out the window.

Danny got up off the bed and started pacing around the room while looking at the floor. The carpet scraped under his feet as he dragged across it, and his hands were behind is back. He was sweaty and dirty from all the fighting, running and flying that he had done over the past few hours.

"Danny, I hope you realize how huge a responsibility it is that rests on your shoulders," the masked man said, not getting up off the bed. "Going out there and killing someone as powerful as Skyler, then destroying Bhyrun himself is no easy task. I hope you're ready to take it on."

"Don't talk like I'm in this alone," Danny scoffed. He turned his attention backed towards the masked man. "You're here to help me if I need it, aren't you? Wasn't that what you were trying to do when you saved me from Skyler an hour or so ago?"

"Yes, but only you can actually stop Bhyrun forever."

"Why me! And I thought you said _you_ were the only one that could stop Bhyrun and Skyler and that you would need _my_ help."

"Now is not the time for this discussion. You said you would go through with this and do whatever it takes to stop Skyler, didn't you?"

"Yes, I did," Danny said.

"And do you plan on sticking to your word?"

"Yeah."

"Very well then. Now, let's go out there and beat Skyler and Bhyrun with everything we got!" encouraged the masked figure.


	22. Giving Strength

Okay, before I begin, I'd like to thank Jenna Dax for that one review. Yes, it was only one, but it was all the motivation I needed to continue. Basically, if I get at least _one_ review for a chapter, then I'll keep writing this. Jenna Dax, thank you for submitting that review. You've convinced me to keep this story going.

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"All right!" Danny said, clenching his fist and hopping off the spring bed he was sitting on. He looked exhausted and worn, but he just forgot about all those things. Sam and Tucker were in great danger now that they had been turned into Bhyspawn, and Danny was going to stop at nothing now to make sure they were safe.

He began running towards the window to start flying out of it before the masked person stopped him. "Wait! If you're really going to be taking on a powerful figure like Bhyrun or Skyler, then you are going to need all the help you can get."

"And I told you, that's why you're here…isn't it?"

"Yes, but you're going to need more than just the powers you have if you want to beat both of them."

"Once again, isn't that the point of your existence?"

"That's not the _point_ for it, but it will definitely help you should you choose to accept it. Do you want my help or not?"

"Of course I do!"

"Very well, then."

The masked figure took his hand and he grabbed Danny's arm with it. The man seemed to be squeezing as hard as he could, and Danny felt like his bones were about to crumple from under the pressure.

As this was happening, Danny got a sudden feeling in his arm. He felt like something was flowing _into_ him.

Danny eventually started screaming, and it almost seemed like it echoed through the hotel room. While the feeling itself didn't cause any noise, Danny thought he heard wind rushing and other imaginary sounds when he felt something surge through his body.

When the masked person let go of Danny's arm, everything went quite. Danny's screaming and all the sounds he thought he was hearing, vanished. He looked around the hotel room, once again taking in the fact that it was completely empty except for him and the masked person.

"Okay, now can you _please_ tell me who you are!" Danny asked.

As he expected, the masked man didn't respond. He seemed like a nice and gentle guy, but there was something weird about him that Danny thought was creepy. The worst part: he also thought the masked guy looked _familiar._

"What I've just done," the masked person started, "has given you the power to pierce that cloud's armor and to defeat Bhyrun."

"Great!" Danny yelled with a huge smile spreading across his face. "Now we can go inside that cloud and finish Bhyrun off!"

"I told you already," the masked person glumly said, "Bhyrun will be way too powerful for either you or me, even for us put together. Skyler has the most of Bhyrun's power now, so we'll need to take care of him first."

"That shouldn't be too hard," Danny said. "Any minute now he's going to pop up in that window and say a few stupid things. Then we're going to fight for the thousandth time today, and just as I'm about to win he's going to fly away, and the process will repeat itself until he dies."

"If I were you, I would not want to wait for him and hope that this fight will be his last," the masked man said. "I would want to find him and make sure that he doesn't live to do any more damage or cause any more problems then he already has."

Danny nodded his head in agreement. "You knew I was being sarcastic, right?"

The masked figure didn't even answer. His gold-colored army was reflecting light from the sun, making it hard for Danny to look at him sometimes.

"Let's leave now and find Skyler," the masked one suggested. "With him out of the way, Bhyrun will make an easy target to attack."

Both of them left the messy and lifeless hotel room and began floating through the sky. As Danny predicted, it wasn't long before they saw him floating in the distance. His dark red figure with black mixed in would be enough to give it away, but a blood red gas surrounding him and his sharp wings also gave it away.

Danny tried to take a shot at Skyler's head from afar, but he jumped a little bit before he fired it and the blast flew right by Skyler's face.

Skyler turned around to see where the blast came from. He saw Danny and the masked person floating a few yards away, and he began snarling. He countered by sending a blast of his own energy at them. Danny and the masked figure moved out of the way simultaneously to avoid the blast.

"Okay, punk," Danny said. "I've had enough of you! This time, you're going down!"

"You dare try to take me on again?" Skyler said. "You're paying for your own funeral, kid!"

Skyler charged at Danny and his fists began to turn the dark red shade that was floating around him. He began firing quick punches at Danny, who had to try his best to dodge every single fist he saw getting thrown at him.

"Danny! Hold on!" screamed the masked man in panic. (Danny thought for sure that was the first time he heard the guy sound panicked)

The masked person launched a ray of golden light at Skyler, and Skyler seemed to get really hurt by it.

Danny took this opportunity to blast Skyler as well. He fired his own blast of energy from behind and nailed Skyler in the back with it.

Skyler screamed in pain and then turned around, looking at Danny.

"_You_ have that power, too!" Skyler said, his voice filling with fear and disbelief. "This can't be!...too strong!..."

Without saying another word, Skyler launched himself past Danny and flew away as fast as he could. Danny and the masked man stared; the masked figure seemed to have a happy and victorious expression while Danny had a confused one.

"What's up with that?" Danny asked. "Did I suddenly get some new ability to hurt him? Or was he just weakened from your blast that mine hurt him a little more?"

Without even replying, the masked man's face dropped and he slowly levitated downwards towards the ground until his feet gently touched. Danny, not knowing what else to do, followed. When they were both on the ground, the masked person began talking.

"Danny, I think it's about time you learned what was going on," he said in a sad, but almost relieved voice.

Danny gasped. Even though it was only a small gasp, it could be heard echoing through the streets. The streets were completely deserted of any people or cars, the road was pretty beat up, and the entire scene looked ravaged.

Just as the masked person was about to say something, Danny saw that his mouth changed to a look of horror. Danny took a second to realize something was wrong, and then turned around. There, hovering over him, were two Bhyspawn.

Danny gasped, but he thought he noticed something strange about those two Bhyspawn. "Sam? Tucker? Is that you guys?"

Both Bhyspawn roared loudly in Danny's face, knocking Danny off guard enough for him to fall to the pavement. He could barely say anything, but he was confused about why the two Bhyspawn just continued to stare at him instead of attack him.

Then Danny heard a cackling sound. He looked up and saw Skyler hovering about fifteen feet in the air above them.

"I shall answer that question for you," he said in a loud, nasty voice. "Yes, those are your friends! Or should I say: _were_ your friends!"

"Dude, can you say something original at least once?"

Skyler didn't seem affected at all by that remark. "Well, you know the drill by now, Ghost Boy! These Bhyspawn are very hungry, and I'm sure you look quite tasty to them."

_Wow, here I am talking to some nut who has fused with a guy from over 600 years ago, and my two best friends are about to devour me. Some vacation THIS is,_ Danny thought to himself.

"But you know how easily you can kill these things, don't you?" Skyler taunted. "You've _killed_ several already, have you not?"

"Yeah, and those were people I didn't even know. You can't expect me to actually kill these guys, especially since they're my friends!"

"Well then, I guess it's feeding time for you two lovely Bhyspawn," Skyler said. "Bon Appetite."

Danny nervously stared into the hungry eyes of the two vicious Bhyspawn. Did he attack them, knowing that they were his friends? Or did he hope that they would come to their senses?

"I don't know what to do…" Danny whined.


	23. Another BreakIn

Before I begin, I want to thank Horselvr and Leppers Zeldafan for those two reviews. I was giving serious thought to putting this story on hiatus since I wasn't getting any reviews, but those two reviews for last chapter motivated me to keep going, so thank you for those. Please keep the reviews coming!

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The two Bhyspawn stared down at Danny, gnashing their teeth together and pinching their claws. He didn't want to hurt either one of them, especially since they were really his friends Sam and Tucker.

"Easy does it there, guys," Danny said, slowly backing away but not turning his head. "I'm your friend Danny, remember? Your best friend? In the whole world?"

The two Bhyspawn didn't seem to be affected by Danny's words at all. The continued approaching him more and more, looking more vicious every passing second.

"Guys, I know it's tempting, but you gotta snap outta this!" he yelled, trying to be as clear to the two monsters as possible. "I know that if you just _try_ to remember the good times we've had together, you can snap out of that form and return to your regular selves! I know you can do it! I believe in both of you!"

One of the Bhyspawn picked Danny up and slammed him on to the ground. He staggered up and looked at the two Bhyspawn, now looking a bit more savage and vicious himself. "Well, that always works in the movies," he grunted.

"Danny!" yelled the masked person behind him. "Don't let your guard down!"

"Shouldn't we fly away or something?" Danny asked. "Bhyspawn can't fly."

Danny immediately started floating in the air and even blew a raspberry at the two Bhyspawn. Instantly, the two monsters sprouted wings and started floating in the air. Danny's face dropped.

"Oh, that's right. They _can_ fly, can't they? How else could they have gotten into my hotel room a few nights ago?"

The two Bhyspawn roared loudly at him and started swiping at him. Danny had to move out of the way very fast, because if he let his guard down at all, he'd get sliced into bite-size strips by the Bhyspawn.

"All right, let's finish this, you guys," Danny said after he flew a safe enough distance away. He hated to do it, but he fired a blast of energy at both of the Bhyspawn. They seemed to be especially hurt by the blasts and were knocked onto the ground.

He stared at them with sad eyes. He hated the fact he had just to hurt his two best (check that-his only) friends in the entire world, but it was either hurt them or get killed by them.

"So, that's how much you care about them?" asked a voice from behind Danny.

This time, Danny didn't even gasp nor do anything like that. Instead, he just groaned and turned around. "Why won't you just go away? Why do you keep popping up and causing me trouble?"

In case you didn't guess, it was Skyler. He was floating in the air with his arms crossed and giving Danny a nasty smirk. "Putting yourself before your friends. I thought you were supposed to be the good guy?"

"We can go without the mind games!" Danny yelled, finally turning around and looking Skyler straight in the eye. "I may be the good guy here, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to do what I have to do to beat Bhyrun and to make sure you never hurt anyone else or turn anyone else into a Bhyspawn!"

"Oh, and you know the one way to do it?" Skyler said.

"You bet I do!" Danny threatened.

"Very well, then," Skyler said. "So, you've finally realized that killing me is the only way you can beat me? Come on, give me your best shot!"

Skyler spread his arms and legs out in mid air, making himself look like a human starfish. Danny's eyes opened wide and his teeth started grinding together.

"You're just begging for it," Danny said with a mixed expression on his face; it was part-worried, part-angry, and part-not knowing what to do. Skyler was actually _encouraging_ Danny to blast him. Apparently, Skyler didn't think Danny would have it in him to actually try to hurt and kill someone.

"Danny, you have to forget your kindness!" the masked man shouted up to Danny as the two adversaries were staring at each other. "You have to beat Skyler now, whether you want to or not!"

Danny continued passing looks down at the masked man and Skyler. The masked man was giving Danny an I-hope-he-does-what-I-want-him-to look, while Skyler was looking very cocky and sure of himself. He _really_ didn't think Danny had the guts to actually go and kill a person.

Danny continued staring at both of him, but after a while, he even started shaking and sweating. This was possibly the hardest decision of his life: deciding to end someone's life or not.

Finally, Danny just burst. He fired a ray of ectoplasma at Skyler with such speed and velocity that Skyler was thrown backwards and stopped floating. He started falling towards the ground below and landed face-first on it. He stayed there and didn't move.

Danny gasped, taking in everything he just did. He looked at Skyler's motionless body on the ground, and thought he just did the one thing he thought he would never do: actually kill someone.

Danny slowly floated onto the ground with a shocked face. He looked at the masked man, who also seemed to be pretty shocked at Danny actually going through with it. Without even stopping for one second, he continued to slowly trot towards Skyler as he lay on the ground. When he was less than half a foot away, Danny got down on one knee and continued looking at his foe.

Out of the blue, Skyler launched up into the air and looked back, staring at Danny and the masked man with a face of complete shock and horror on it. Without saying another word, he flew off, presumably going as fast as he could.

The masked man walked over to Danny and stared off with him as they both watched Skyler run away.

"You know," Danny started, "when I thought I killed him, I was pretty upset with myself. But now that I know he _isn't_ dead, I'm pretty upset about it. Why can't that guy just go to a mental institute or something and not have to make me take any more of his grief?"

"Calm down, Danny," the masked man said coolly. "Skyler now knows how powerful you are now. He won't come looking for trouble."

"That's good," Danny said, now sounding like he was out of breath.

"Actually, no it's not," the masked person said. "Now that Skyler knows that you aren't afraid to teach him a thing or two, he's not going to come looking for you now. That means if you're going to weaken Bhyrun's power, you're going to have to go looking for _him_ now."

"Aw, man!" Danny groaned. "That's just great. I have absolutely no clue where he is. How am I supposed to find him if I don't even know where to start looking?"

"Why don't you go to the place where he got arrested?" the masked man suggested. "You know, at his science lab?"

"You know, that actually makes sense," Danny thought. "I mean, where else could he go without someone finding him? All right, let's head there now."

"Hold it!" the masked man said. "It's still light out. Skyler would be able to easily see us and send his entire fleet of Bhyspawn out to stop us. We're going to have to wait until it's dark out so Skyler will have a harder time detecting us."

"All right," Danny agreed.

So that's exactly what they did. The two of them waited until nightfall, and when it was too dark out to see much. Danny still had the address of Skyler's lab engraved in his mind from when his dad took him out to try to destroy the cloud about a day into their vacation.

In no time, Danny and the masked figure were standing outside the lab, crouching below a window. They looked in and saw that there were Bhyspawn patrolling all of the halls and doors. There was no way they could both get in without getting mangled.

"How are we going to get in?" Danny asked. "Even if one of us goes in as a distraction, that will only leave one person to deal with Skyler. Besides, security might be too tight even for that method."

"Well, we can't go and ask people to help us break into a science lab," the masked person said. "Wouldn't you be pretty terrified if some masked figure with a sword and a teenaged ghost asked them for help breaking into a mad scientist's lab with nasty looking creatures guarding every corner?"

"I know, I know," Danny admitted. "But that doesn't leave us a lot of options. There's no possible way then we could break into that lab and have us both make it out alive."

The two of them slumped on the grass outside Skyler's lab, disappointed that after figuring out where Skyler was hiding and that they would finish him once and for all, they couldn't even break into his lab.

After a long silence, something triggered in Danny's mind. The masked man looked at him with interest and saw Danny's face. Just by looking at his face, the masked figure could clearly see that several thoughts were pulsing through Danny's head and that he had hope the thoughts would work. His eyes gave the impression that they were formulating a plan to solve world hunger, and after a few seconds of thinking and planning things out, Danny's eyes lit up.

"Hey!" Danny yelled to the masked man. "I got an idea! I know how we can break into Skyler's lab, confuse the Bhyspawn and to even throw Skyler for a loop!"


	24. Success

The vent opened, and the fourteen-year old halfa and the masked man crawled in through the dirty grates and had climbed their way into Skyler's lab. The entire place was dark and deserted, and even though Danny had only been in there a few days before when Skyler was a normal person like everyone else, the laboratory now looked completely different. Everything now seemed much darker, everything down to the carpet and cement walls. There was a cold presence just standing in it.

Danny and the masked figure were both breathing heavily, but trying to keep their cool. They both saw that the hallways were deserted and that there were no Bhyspawn guarding the halls at all. Something must have grabbed their attention to make them run off or go somewhere else, one would think.

"Okay," Danny whispered once they were safely inside Skyler's lab, "we're going to need to be as sneaky as possible if we're going to find Skyler and finish him off."

"Yes, but you're _sure_ you want to do this?" the masked man replied. Even though there was barely enough light to see in the dark, the man's armor still seemed to shimmer and shine.

"I don't have a choice," Danny said. "If no more people are going to die because of that cloud, then Skyler and Bhyrun are going to have to be the ones to die. Somebody's got to do the job, and unfortunately, that somebody looks like it's going to be you and me."

The masked man smiled, but Danny couldn't really make it out in the dark. There was a long silence of the two just standing in the almost pitch-black laboratory that not only seemed deserted, but lifeless and dead.

"Well, shall we?" the masked stranger asked.

"Yeah."

The two of them started walking down the long, seemingly endless hallways to Skyler's lab. Danny had only been in there a few days before, but he would think it was a completely different building now. It seemed all the scientific equipment was gone and it felt more like a haunted house.

"So, haven't you been in this building before?" the masked man asked.

"Yeah," Danny replied quickly, "but I don't remember it too well. Plus, it's kind of dark in here."

"Well, weren't you here the night Skyler got arrested here?" the masked person asked.

"Yeah, why?"

"Then you obviously could see him clearly if you were in the same room as him during his arrest. Do you remember what the room looked like?"

"Yeah," Danny said, trying to recall the events of that night. Even though it had only been less than a week, it felt like an eternity after everything that had happened between him, Skyler and Bhyrun.

"Then, try to lead us into the room where you and Skyler fought!" the masked man said in a bit of an aggressive tone.

Danny gave the guy a bit of an upset glare, but quickly turned away and started leading them towards the large room in the center of the entire laboratory. Every now and then they had to check the corners to make sure there were no Bhyspawn waiting to attack them. After all, Danny wasn't sure whether or not his plan was foolproof to sneak in, and he wasn't sure if the Bhyspawn took the bait.

"You sure don't seem like you know where you're going," the masked man said after Danny continued leading them down the dark lab where danger seemed to lurk around every corner.

For the past five minutes, all Danny had done was successfully get them lost. The lab now seemed more like a maze that never ended. The little light in the entire place made it really hard to see, and the fact that Danny had to be careful to make sure there were no Bhyspawn around only made the two slower.

After what seemed like an endless scavenger hunt, the two finally made it to a place Danny recognized. It was a dead-end except for a single door sticking in the wall, and it was a large one. It led directly into the room where Danny fought Skyler for the first time.

"All right," Danny said with determination filling up his voice, "this is where the book of Skyler's life ends! I'll bet you he's behind that door now, and this time, we're _ready _for him."

The masked man only nodded.

"All right," Danny said, backing away from the door and got ready to kick it, "On three. One…two…three!"

Danny and the masked man both kicked the door at the same time and the giant door to the main lab flew open. They were now in Skyler's main lab.

But Danny's face deflated in an instant. Skyler wasn't there; the room was completely empty.

Danny made a few stuttering sounds, getting all wound up for the big moment, only to find Skyler wasn't there.

"Do you think he's in some other part of the lab?" the masked man asked.

"I doubt it," Danny said, sounding like he just dropped a winning lottery ticket off a cliff. "If he was somewhere else in the lab, he probably would have found us. Well, it's only a matter of time before those Bhyspawn come."

"Hey? How come you sound so depressed?" the masked man asked.

"I wanted it to be over," Danny said sadly. "I wanted to just fight Skyler and be done with it. After that fight, one of us would end up dead. Either way, the problems would be over for me with that fight."

The masked man seemed to take that remark as a surprise, maybe even an offense.

"Wait a sec-aren't you Danny Phantom, the kid who's shown he can take on school _and_ ghosts at the same time?"

"Who else?" Danny asked.

"You were just full of hope and spirit a moment ago, and just because Skyler isn't in this room, you're going to just give it all up?"

Danny didn't say anything. He just stared down at the floor.

"Come on, kid," the masked figure said, "you've shown you can put up with this. You've taken on ghosts time and time again and always won, no matter how high the odds were stacked against you."

"How do you know all this?"

"Listen son," the masked man said in a sympathetic tone, "just because you couldn't find Skyler doesn't mean you won't get him. And you're wrong to say your problems would end after this fight. If you survived the fight and killed Skyler, you would still have Bhyrun to take care of. And if you died in the fight, then your parents and your friends and everyone who knows you…how will they feel? That being said, how can you honestly say this will all be over after this fight?"

Danny stared off for a while, taking in the moral the masked man just taught him. Finally, a smile broke across his face and got just as anxious as before. He was about to say something, until a presence suddenly became known in the room.

"That must be one of the corniest things I've ever heard," said a voice from somewhere in the room. The sudden speak-up caused both Danny and the masked man to jump, and they soon turned towards where they heard the voice coming from.

Standing in a corner of the room was a man who was taller than either of them, and he looked like a regular human, but with dark red and black skin, and he had black M shaped wings. There was some red gas floating around the sides of him.

"Skyler!" Danny yelled.

Skyler had just popped up in the room after the masked man finished making the speech to Danny about why he shouldn't give up. Skyler had a nasty smile across his face, but he looked like he was expecting an attack.

The masked man drew his sword and got ready to strike Skyler with it while Danny walked up in front and looked Skyler in the eye.

"You've tried to kill me, my friends and my family," he said in a low tone full of hatred and spite. "You've turned my two best friends into your minions and now you've tried to do the same to me. You've tortured me with the decision of attacking and killing actual people."

Skyler seemed to be quite amused as Danny was making these comments. It looked like the angrier Danny got, the more delighted Skyler became.

"I'm not holding back this time," Danny warned. He put up his two fists and green ectoplasma energy started surrounding them. "Get ready, Skyler!"

It was like a giant fight had started, and without saying another word, Danny started flying in the air, but for some reason, he didn't seem to be attacking.

Meanwhile, on the ground, the masked man charged in and pointed his sword at Skyler. A small golden light started forming on the tip of it, and a mini bolt of lightning fired from the tip of it. It was then when the masked person's expression turned to determined to concerned.

"Did I make a bad decision doing that?" he asked himself as he fired that bolt of lightning from his sword.

Skyler didn't seem to get hurt by it too much at all, but it looked like he still felt some pain. Instantly, he countered by pointing his hand out and charging what looked like dark maroon rays of electricity from it.

The masked man had to dodge the electricity as best as he could. Danny watched from above as he saw the masked man struggling to avoid getting hit by Skyler's deadly electrical rays. The rays were hitting the stainless steel side walls, creating charred marks on them where those blasts hit.

But after a while, the masked man got tired, and he seemed worn down much quicker than Danny remembered him normally getting tired. When he was getting slower, one of Skyler's blasts hit him dead-on.

The masked man screamed loudly and fell to the ground after being hit by Skyler's electric rays. He fell on the ground in pain as Skyler began chuckling to himself for his victorious hit.

Danny gasped at this and flew downwards as fast as possible. He landed right in front of his injured ally, who seemed to have a hard time getting up.

Meanwhile, Skyler saw Danny's guard was down, so he slowly walked towards one of the drawers in his lab and pulled out one of the sharp needles that he had used the first time he and Danny had fought. Nervously, but gleefully, he began slowly walking towards Danny with the needle in a striking position.

Danny wasn't paying attention to this; he was too busy trying to take care of his wounded ally. Not only did Danny need to make sure that the masked person was okay because it was a person's life that was fading away, but also because the masked man seemed to be his only means of being able to defeat Skyler or Bhyrun.

Danny's back was still facing Skyler, and Skyler was only a few feet away with the long, sharp needle in his hand. When he was within arm's reach of Danny, he thrust the knife into Danny's back with so much force it came out the other side.

Danny gasped, as did the masked man. Both of them seemed to have the same amount of surprise and disbelief on their face.

The entire room went quiet, and all time seemed to go into "Matrix Mode". The room was so deathly quiet, it would deeply disturb anyone who was in the same room. There was heavy breathing, from all three fighters. Danny and the masked man had wide open mouths from what just happened, while Skyler was smiling with the most evil expression anyone could ever imagine.

The most stunned from this was Danny. Skyler had just given him a fatal wound by stabbing him with a needle in a drawer. When Danny saw that the needle and gone right through his entire midsection and came out the other side Skyler stabbed him from, he could only groan. He knew it wouldn't be long.


	25. Finally Revealed

Before I begin, I'm going to answer a question that was asked in the last review, because an answer won't come along to it. Writer's-BlockDP asked me why I couldn't have Danny just make both of them intangible and pass through the walls and avoid all the Bhyspawn. The reason I didn't do that is simply because it would be boring. I thought just going through the walls would be too obvious and easy, so I just did that to make things a little more interesting.

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The entire room was silent. The masked man watched in horror as he stared at the sharp needle go right through Danny's torso. Danny himself looked very shocked and upset. Skyler, naturally, was the only one smiling.

After what seemed like the longest time, Danny finally began to vaporize. His entire body disappeared into a puff of smoke, and less than three seconds later, he was completely gone. He was dead.

Skyler broke the tragic silence with his most evil laugh yet. "I've done it!" he shrieked with glee. "I've finally done it! With that ghost boy dead, my problems shall be no more!"

The masked man was not just looking worried anymore, but now he was shaking. His life was going to be over soon, and he knew it. Skyler turned his attention towards him with a malicious sneer. He slowly started walking over to the masked man and started charging up a massive ball of dark red energy in his hand. The masked man, still being injured from Skyler's electric ray attack, was slumped on the floor and couldn't move that well yet.

"You've gotten in my way and Bhyrun's way long enough," Skyler said in a hissing tone, losing the grin and switching to a murderous looking face. "Bhyrun and I have been waiting a long time to say this. It's time to die, N-"

"Hey Skyler!" interrupted a familiar voice from a little bit behind. "April Fool's!"

Skyler grunted and turned around, only to get a blast in the face from someone. It was Danny!

Skyler fell on the ground, writhing in pain. He sat up a moment later and was obviously confused. "What?...but how! You were dead!"

Danny started laughing to himself. "You really think it'd be that easy to kill me?" Danny smirked. He was floating a few inches off the ground with his hands on his hips. Even though there was no wind around, his hair seemed to be blowing heroically.

Skyler continued stuttering. Danny didn't waste any time and sent another ray of ectoplasma energy at him. Skyler was knocked around again, and Danny ran over to him.

"You really want to know how I'm still alive?" Danny asked with a self-confident expression on his face. Now, it was Skyler who was in trouble instead of him for once. "I thought for sure you'd want to know how I even got into your lab in the first place."

"…How?" Skyler asked, sounding as if he simply had to know.

"You see, I've been working on a new skill for a while," Danny explained, keeping a very close eye on Skyler to make sure he didn't pull anything suspicious. "It's the ability to duplicate myself. I could never get it quite right, but this time I found the motivation to do it. Bottom line, I duplicated myself, and made it stay with this guy. (he was referring to the masked person) The_ real_ me went in ahead to lure the Bhyspawn out of the way so this guy and my duplicate could sneak in while I confused the Bhyspawn and had them keep running in circles. In the meantime, my duplicate tried to lead the way into here and led you right into the false sense of security I wanted you in."

"Impossible!" Skyler said in disbelief. He sounded like he was going to have a heart attack any minute. "I was an Oxford and Harvard graduate; I was a professor in human biology at M.I.T." There was a short pause. "How could I lose to someone like you?"

"You can have all the diplomas and teacher's licenses you want," Danny said without really answering, "but you'll always just be another one of the stupid baddies I have to fight day in and day out."

"You little…" Skyler said, still struggling to get up after the surprise blast.

As he tried moving, Danny fired another blast at Skyler and knocked him into the ground even more. Skyler was moaning in pain, thinking his life was only moments away from ending. Danny started approaching Skyler as he slouched on the ground, and the cocky attitude disappeared and was replaced by a cold, serious expression.

"You've given me a bunch of trouble this week," Danny said, sounding like he had just been possessed and sounding evil. "You know I don't want to have to kill you, but between an insane jerk like you and literally millions of innocent people's lives, I'd much rather see you go. My least favorite part is that if you need to die for those people's lives to be saved, _I'm_ the one who's going to have to do the killing!"

Skyler continued grumbling, thinking Danny still didn't have it in him to actually kill someone. But he would soon be proven wrong.

"Hey dude, can I borrow your sword for a second?" Danny asked, turning his head to the masked figure, who was finally getting off of the floor.

Not saying anything, the masked figure pulled out his sword and handed it to Danny. Danny took the sword and gripped it like iron, then went over to Skyler, ready to impale him to the floor with the sword.

Danny looked like he was about to break out into emotional tears from having to do the one thing he'd never want to do: killing someone. But he was going to listen to the masked man, who had more than earned Danny's trust over the past few days.

"So, you like stabbing things through people, huh!" Danny raged, raising the sword in the air and about to push it right through Skyler. "Let's see how fun it really is!"

Just as Danny was about to thrust the sword into Skyler and end his existence once and for all, Skyler performed one last tricky move: he rolled his leg around and hit the back of Danny's ankles, knocking him off balance.

Danny fell to the ground and dropped the sword, and Skyler launched himself up on his feet again at the exact same moment.

"You're one stubborn kid!" he criticized, looking at Danny lying on the ground. He started preparing a fatal blast of energy in his hand and pointed it at Danny's head. Just as he was about to fire it, he got blasted in the face by a yellow ray of light that the masked man fired out of his hand.

Skyler fell backwards, but he didn't appear to be in great pain. As soon as he regained focus, he realized that with Danny and the masked man fighting him in this enclosed area, he would be outmatched. Realizing this, he blew open a hole in the wall and escaped through it. He flew outside and started ascending higher and higher into the air.

Danny grunted angrily, realizing that that was the closest he had ever gotten to finishing Skyler, and the opportunity slipped out from right between his fingers.

Now filling with rage, Danny got ready to shoot up after Skyler and fight him to the death in the sky. He really didn't want to kill someone, but Skyler had given him so much trouble that he just wanted to get him out of his way. And he might have, but the masked man put his arms around Danny and restrained him.

"Danny!" yelled the masked figure, keeping the firmest grip he could on Danny. "Forget it! Skyler will be back, and he won't have much time left. Trust me."

Danny tried calming down, and after a while, he could really feel a decrease in his adrenaline. It was a weird feeling to be so pumped up and to then feel the pressure drop, but Danny didn't have time to worry about it.

"You want to tell me why you did that!" Danny yelled. "I could've caught Skyler and finished him! Why did you stop me!"

"Calm down!" the masked stranger commanded. He started shaking Danny until he was calm. "Listen, we don't have time to worry about him right now. I have a feeling he's going to go down very soon, and we need to strategize what we're going to do after he loses and how we're going to use that to stop Bhyrun."

"And where are we supposed to go?" Danny asked, finally feeling much more calm and sane. "There is nowhere we can go where Skyler won't find us."

"How about your hotel room?" the masked man suggested. "I don't believe he's found you there yet. He probably wouldn't expect to find such a big enemy like you in a hotel resort."

"All right," Danny agreed. "Come on, let's go."

The two of them started flying out of the hole Skyler created in the wall and headed back towards the hotel.

When they finally arrived at the hotel, Danny made both of them go intangible and they passed right through the window into Danny's room. As soon as they were inside, Danny sighed loudly and put his hands on his hips. He started pacing around the room, looking down at the floor and licking his lips.

The masked man, on the other hand, was obviously feeling pretty exhausted after that ordeal in the laboratory. He sat down on the end of one of the beds and looked like he could just tumble backwards and fall asleep.

"So, what exactly is it that we want to do?" Danny asked, still pacing around the room and not looking at the masked man. "Do we want to kill Skyler and then go attack that cloud?"

The masked man looked at Danny and patted the side of the bed next to him, signaling Danny to sit down next to him. Danny obeyed and gently planted himself on the bed next to him.

"Danny, what we want to do is kill Skyler," the masked person said. "Because once we kill Skyler, a lot of Bhyrun's power will disappear. It is _imperative_ that that happens! If Bhyrun doesn't lose his power, then neither one of us will stand any hope."

"Really?" Danny asked. "I thought we made a pretty good team, especially back in the lab against Skyler."

"Actually, I really made a mistake in there," the masked stranger replied. "I gave you some of my powers a little while ago, when I put my hand on your arm and you felt like power was flowing through you. That was mine."

"Really?" Danny asked.

"Yes. My energy hurts Skyler more than your regular ectoplasmic rays do. That was why they seemed to get much more hurt by your blasts than before."

"Then, how's that a mistake?" Danny curiously asked. "If we both have powers that can kick their butts, then how can it be bad?"

"Because, I _gave_ you a lot of my power when doing so," the masked man said. "Now, your power would be at about 70 percent while it would put mine at about 30 percent. You would have all the weight of the battle dumped on you, because I would definitely not be able to fight with that little power."

"Well, how are we going to get around that?" Danny asked.

The masked man didn't seem to have an answer. He looked down at the floor and sighed. He slowly lifted his head back up. "The last time we were talking like this, I was about to tell you something important, remember?"

"Yeah," Danny said, "and then Skyler came and screwed everything up. What were you about to say?"

The masked man stood up, but continued looking Danny in the eye. Slowly, he said something breath taking. "Danny, I think it's about time you learned who I really am."

Danny gasped and choked on his own breath. He watched in complete shock and disbelief as the masked person lifted his hands up and put them on each side of his gold-colored helmet. Slowly, the person began lifting the helmet off his head, slowly revealing more and more of his face. Danny watched in complete shock.

Finally, the helmet was completely off and Danny was staring at the person who was behind the mask the whole time.

"…you?" Danny asked, not sure what to believe. He was staring at someone with a plain face and dark hair hanging over his face from being crushed by the mask. "…the police sergeant?"

Danny was actually a little disappointed. Yes, the man behind the mask who had saved him time and time again was in reality the police sergeant who showed up the night Skyler and Danny fought for the first time and arrested him. (the one from Chapter 12, in case you forgot)

"I had to protect my identity for your protection, Daniel Fenton," the sergeant said.

"What the?..." Danny asked. "This doesn't make any sense! How can…but you can't be…"

"Danny, believe it," the sergeant said, his grey-blue eyes fixing themselves on Danny. "The thing you have to worry about the most now is saving your friends and stopping Skyler and Bhyrun."

"How am I supposed to save them?" Danny asked, still trying to take in everything that just happened.

"To change your friends and everyone else out of their Bhyspawn forms," the sergeant said in an almost depressed voice, "we're going to have to destroy this curse once and for all. We must destroy Skyler and Bhyrun, and to do that, we need to get _inside_ that cloud."

"Go _inside_ the cloud!" Danny said in complete surprise. "No thanks. I've already been in that cloud once already, and I don't want to go inside it again!"

"You want to save your friends and all those other people, don't you?" the sergeant asked.

"Well, yeah, but…"

"Then that's the only way to do it," the figure said bluntly.

"Do you actually have a plan to get inside that cloud?" Danny asked.

"Yes, I do."


	26. The End of One

"All right," Danny said, his arms crossed. He was staring right at the sergeant, the one who had been behind the mask all this time. "You think you know how we can get inside that cloud? All right, then. How?"

"Simple," the sergeant said. "You just grab my arm, make us both go intangible and fly us right into that cloud."

"You sure that will work?" Danny asked. "It seems too simple. And what about Skyler? He's definitely going to pop up at some point since we let him get away in the lab a little while ago."

"I think I know where he is," the sergeant coolly said, his blue eyes seeming to reflect how calm he sounded. "And if my thought are correct, then us killing Skyler and getting inside Bhyrun will all play out accordingly."

"Uh…" Danny stuttered, not understanding completely what the sergeant just said, "do you mean that by finding Skyler, he'll capture us or something and lead us inside the cloud where we fight the final battle?"

"Something like that," the sergeant said with a smile starting to spread across his face. "All right, we're about to go through with this. Are you ready?"

"Go through with it? You mean to end it?" Danny asked.

The sergeant nodded his head.

"All right," Danny then agreed. "Let's go ahead and finish this, then!"

Danny grabbed the sergeant's arm and made both of them intangible. He phased them through the window of the hotel room, and as soon as they were outside, Danny stopped and stared at the massive black cloud hovering in the air.

"So, all of this just because that bottle broke…" Danny said in a philosophical way. "We have to destroy that cloud so Bhyrun will die, right?"

"You have it backwards," the sergeant corrected. "Once Bhyrun is dead, then the cloud will disappear and everything should return to normal."

"Okay," Danny said. He had more determination in his expression than he ever had before. His adrenaline was rising, and he was becoming very anxious about finishing the entire thing once and for all. "All right, then, let's go!"

Danny and the sergeant charged at the cloud as fast as Danny could pull both of them. In a matter of seconds, the cloud was only a few feet away from them, and it looked huge staring at it from such a short distance away.

"You ready?" Danny asked.

"Yes."

"All right, let's get in there and finish Bhyrun!"

Still intangible, Danny thrust both of them into the cloud and expected to pass right through it. But, for some reason, the two hit the cloud as if they had just run head on into a block of cement.

Danny made a slight yell when he got deflected from entering the cloud, and the two of them became tangible again.

"What was that!" Danny shrieked.

"Not being able to go into the cloud…so it _is_ you," the sergeant said in deep thought. "I know why neither of us can go in the cloud."

"Why not?"

"…_BUT, _I think I know a way we can get inside."

"Uh…okay," Danny said, still wanting an answer to his question.

"Both of us shall start firing our energy at the cloud," the sergeant instructed. "If we can't get in by passing through the armor, we're going to need to make a hole to go in."

"Oh, I get it," Danny said with a smile on his face. "We need to use our energy to burn a hole in the cloud so we can get in."

"You'll see."

The two of them held out their hands and started firing the strongest blast they could at the cloud, and they fired it for a long time before any steam started fizzing up from the point where Danny's ectoplasma rays hit the surface of the dark cloud.

After a while, they stopped firing to see they hadn't even made a dent in the cloud. Danny was now upset, but confused. "It looks like your plan didn't work."

"What do you mean?" the sergeant asked, smiling. "I didn't think we'd be able to make a hole in this cloud with our energy."

"Then how come you made us do it?"

"Well, if we can't make a hole in the cloud, we'll have to make someone make the hole _for us_."

"What are you talking about?"

Instantly, a whooshing sound was heard and both of them looked over. A gaping hole just appeared in part of the cloud, and the two of them turned their attention to it. Suddenly, Skyler came flying out of the hole and seemed very upset to see the two of them.

"You!" Skyler hissed. After just being inside the cloud for a while, he now looked even meaner for some reason. He now looked charcoal black mixed in with dark red, but there was still some dark red gas hovering around him as he floated. His sharp wings were now almost as tall he was, and about two feet long.

"Skyler!" Danny yelled. "This is the end of it all! Surrender, or prepare to die!"

Skyler started chuckling, then looked right at Danny's angry and concentrated face. "My, you certainly seem to have gotten more aggressive since we last met."

"I told you, if I have to be the one to stop you, I will!"

Skyler started chuckling again. "I am fused with Bhyrun, have you forgotten that? One of the most powerful men in History, and I'm fused with him! Nothing can stop us now!"

"Well, we can," Danny smirked.

"By all means, try!" Skyler yelled. "You seriously want to fight me, even with your little friend at your side?"

"I'm telling you Skyler, this is the end! I'm not going to have to fight you anymore after this!"

"Very well, then," Skyler hissed. "Then you won't fight _anyone_ again after this fight is over, Ghost Child!" Skyler's voice seemed to get more demonic with every word he said.

Danny, Skyler and the sergeant didn't waste any time. All of them charged in full force, and they started fighting like they had never fought before.

Skyler started by taking his hands and pointing one of them at both of his opponents, and then blasting them both simultaneously.

Danny and the sergeant both got blasted back, but it didn't take long at all for them to recover. The both put their hands out at the same time with four in total, and they fired it. But just as the blasts were about to hit Skyler, he put up a force field around himself and the four blasts were deflected.

"Oh no!" Danny yelled. "He can shield himself from our attacks! How are we supposed to cream him now!"

The sergeant didn't pay any attention this and instantly pulled out his sword and started taking savage swings at Skyler with it. Skyler had to make a few quick dodges with it, but eventually won over and grabbed the blade. He forced it from the sergeant's hands and threw it down to the ground.

Skyler then grabbed the sergeant by the front of his armor and started giving him heavy punches right to the face. It looked like it would be over when Skyler started forming a ball of energy in his hand until Danny blasted Skyler in the back of the head from behind.

Skyler dropped the sergeant. The sergeant plummeted to the ground with a hard thud and remained motionless for a few seconds.

Skyler turned his attention back towards Danny. The fight had so far been a short one, but both of them were sweating rapidly now and were already getting tired.

The two enemies were now drifting higher and higher into the air and were fighting almost like they were being supported on free-range invisible cables. Danny's fists started lighting up in green and Skyler's in red. Together, the two of them started exchanging and dodging punches with streams of red and green left in the path of the fists.

After taking a few swings at Skyler, Danny finally just brought up his leg and kicked Skyler in the stomach. Skyler bent over and groaned, but still suspended himself in mid air. Danny took this opportunity to do some further damage. He grabbed Skyler by the hair and forcefully pulled his head up so they were staring face to face.

Once Danny and Skyler were staring at each other, Danny held open his hand and fired a strong blast of ectoplasmic energy right into Skyler's face. The blast was strong enough to knock Skyler back several feet.

"That's it, Skyler!" Danny yelled. "You're finished!"

Danny started charging towards Skyler, ready to slam into him. When Danny was a short distance away, Skyler fired a sudden punch and smashed the side of Danny's head with it.

Danny was blown to the side from the sudden blast, and Skyler was suddenly back in the fight. He ran over and started beating Danny up as viciously as Danny had been beating him.

"Correction," Skyler hissed when Danny was losing sense. "_You're_ finished!"

Skyler got his own ball of energy charged, and just as he was ready to fire it, he got a knock on the back of the head. He turned around, and the police sergeant was standing there.

Once again, it was a three-person fight. Skyler was now in much more trouble, because he was in a more weakened state. His only advantage was that Danny and the sergeant were now significantly more tired, possibly making them an easier target.

Skyler was trying to be as fast as he could be, whether or not he had a lot of energy left afterwards. Danny and the sergeant were just randomly blasting. In other words, all of them were improvising and not really taking any strategy in trying to kill their enemy.

"Wait!" Danny yelled. "Let's beat Skyler with the same trick the last time we fought him!"

"You mean the ping-pong one?" asked the sergeant.

"Yeah!"

"Oh no, you don't!" Skyler yelled angrily. "You're not hitting me back and forth again! I'm on to your tricks, and I'm not gonna…"

His speech was interrupted by a hit in the face from Danny. "Dude, when will you ever learn to stop speaking in monologues?" Danny asked with a small smile starting to spread across his face.

Skyler turned towards him and looked like he was ready to kill someone. (Which was something he wanted to do) He flew over to the sergeant and flew behind him. That exact same moment, he put his arm around the sergeant's neck as hard as he could. Basically, Skyler was now using the sergeant as a human shield.

"You want to kill me?" Skyler said, sneering at Danny. "You want to hit me with one of your big blasts? Come on; try to hit me and not your friend!"

Danny's eyes had more fury in them than the ever had before. He didn't want to fire a blast because he didn't want to hurt the sergeant.

Danny fired the blast anyway. He either hit Skyler or he didn't, and not hitting him wouldn't do any good. Luckily for Danny, Skyler didn't think Danny would actually risk firing a blast and hurting the sergeant.

The blast hit Skyler right between the eyes, and he dropped the sergeant to the ground. (again) Now, it was just Danny and Skyler in the sky once again. The two of them, instead of fighting, had more of a standoff. They just circled around in the air, not once taking their gaze off one another.

Finally, the two of them just charged at each other and looked more like wrestlers. Both of them were unleashing their utmost fury. In the end, they both ended up grabbing onto each other and tried to slam each other into the ground, like a suicide move.

Danny and Skyler started hurtling towards the ground going over fifty miles an hour, and neither one of them would probably survive the impact of smashing into the cement hundreds of feet below.

When the two hit the ground, the impact was so huge it created a massive dust cloud and left a hole in the ground.

The dust cleared, and Skyler was the only one standing. He was breathing heavily as he folded his sharp wings up and began walking upright. He looked around for a little bit until he saw Danny lying on the ground, barely able to move.

Danny saw Skyler walking towards him, but couldn't move; he could only stare. When Skyler was only a few inches away, he put his foot on Danny's head.

"Like I said, stubborn to the end," Skyler hissed. He was laughing to himself on the inside about Danny not being able to move or do anything now. "And this, my friend, is the end for you. What do you think of that?"

Danny slowly looked over to the side and saw the sergeant's glowing sword a short distance away. Faster than anyone could blink, Danny reached over and picked up the sword. Even quicker than someone could process that, Danny thrust the blade right through Skyler's stomach, just like Skyler thought he had when he stuck a needle through Danny's duplicate earlier that day.

Now _Skyler_ had shock written all over him. Danny found the strength to roll free of Skyler stepping on his head. He stood up and pulled the sword out of Skyler with a ton of force.

"I think if you're going to kill someone, just kill them and don't waste time talking about it," Danny said.

Skyler started screaming at the top of his lungs, and slowly, red smoke started to come from him. He gradually reverted back to his human form. It had been so long since Danny had seen Skyler in his human form, he forgot what it looked like.

Skyler was now on his knees and shaking violently, as if he was in the middle of the Arctic in beach clothes after just getting out of the water. His eyes were squeezed shut as he shook, until he finally opened them and stared at Danny.

"W…why?" Skyler hissed. His voice sounded like he now wanted Danny's sympathy. "You knew reaching the human's potential was my dream, and you took it from me. Why!"

"Dude, you brought this on yourself," Danny said, not giving Skyler the sympathy he thought he deserved.

"I was only trying to discover a person's true potential," Skyler tried to say defending himself. "W…why?"

Danny just continued staring at Skyler. Danny's face was now dirty and beat up from the fight, and his hair looked like it had just come out of a lawnmower. He didn't say anything.

"It was my dream…" Skyler said, still shaking violently on his hands and knees, not once taking his eyes off Danny. "My…dream…"

Suddenly, Skyler just plopped onto the ground. His shaking stopped, and it looked like he stopped breathing. After a few seconds, Danny started nudging Skyler on the shoulder, looking for any signs of movement. Skyler didn't show any.

It was at that point when Danny knew Skyler was dead.


	27. The Truth, Part 1

Danny stared at the body of Skyler lying on the ground. Danny had met Skyler at a museum show Jazz forced him to see early on in the vacation. Now, about four days and ten-bazillion fights later, Skyler was finally dead.

After staring at Skyler's lifeless corpse, the sergeant ran over to him. He was breathing heavy and looked very beat up, but he seemed relieved to see Danny was okay. He seemed even _more_ relieved to see Skyler there.

"Is he?..."

"Yeah," Danny said, knowing what the sergeant was about to say. "Skyler's dead. He won't be a problem to us, anymore."

The sergeant seemed very happy about this. "Spectacular!" he yelled. "Now that he's gone, Bhyrun will be much weaker. Now we can take him on and defeat Bhyrun and end his reign of terror forever!"

"Don't get too cocky, boys!" cackled a voice from above. Danny and the sergeant gasped and they turned around. Hovering in the air just a few feet under the dark cloud was Bhyrun with an entire squad of Bhyspawn.

The air seemed to get colder as Bhyrun and stared down at them. Everything went quiet as all the Bhyspawn started floating slowly to the ground. Eventually, they're feet all tapped on to the ground. They started shifting around until they were in a circular formation, until they were completely boxing in Danny and the sergeant.

Bhyrun stayed floating in the air high enough to see, even with all the Bhyspawn standing around. "You think killing Skyler will mean the death of me?" he cackled, his bone-white face turning into a hideous gaze.

"Listen, Bhyrun!" Danny yelled, "Now that I know I've got that side of me that doesn't care about having to kill someone, don't think I'm going to let you live!"

Bhyrun just let out a nasty chuckle. "You seriously think his death will make me all the easier to destroy? Have you forgotten I have an entire army of these Bhyspawn at my disposal?"

Danny's face went from angry and determined to concern in nothing-flat. He looked all around at the Bhyspawn, knowing that they were still human beings. They still had part of Bhyrun within them, and Danny proved by killing Skyler that he didn't care whether or not it was a person; if it had the mark of Bhyrun on it, it should die. But these Bhyspawn were different from Skyler. These were people who wanted nothing to do with what was happening.

"Oh, maybe you need to talk with some people you know who you can trust about what to do," Bhyrun said in a voice that pretended he actually cared about Danny struggling on the decision of whether or not he should kill the Bhyspawn. "Here, why don't you talk to your friends about it?"

Bhyrun waved his hand, and two Bhyspawn charged into the circle. There was nothing distinguishing them from the other Bhyspawn standing around them, but Danny could tell who they were.

"Sam? Tucker? Is that you, guys?" Danny weakly asked, staring into the deadly green eyes of the two Bhyspawn Bhyrun had just sent into the circle.

The Bhyspawn replied by roaring loudly in Danny's face. Danny looked around, and all the Bhyspawn were now closing in on him and the sergeant. Time was running out, and now was the time to choose: would Danny continue to remain determined and do whatever he could to save himself, or would his conscientious side take over?

"Come on, pal!" Danny said, looking over to the sergeant. "We're gonna blow this joint!"

Danny grabbed the sergeant by the arms and started flying them both up into the air. Danny no longer wanted to be fight with the want to kill someone inside of him, and the only way to avoid that was to flee for now.

Bhyrun could fly, as could all of the Bhyspawn, but for some reason, they didn't. Bhyrun just chuckled. "They'll be back," he promised all of his Bhyspawn. "Just wait for them."

At the moment, Bhyrun started floating up into the air, and like a herd of sheep, all the Bhyspawn followed him. As they got to the bottom of the dark cloud, Bhyrun waved his hand, and a massive hole appeared in the bottom of the massive cloud, making an entrance inside.

As Danny and the sergeant were flying away, the sergeant turned around and saw Bhyrun and all the Bhyspawn heading inside the cloud. He stopped flying and tugged at the back of Danny's black jumpsuit, stopping him, too.

"Danny, the entrance into the cloud is open! We can sneak in there and easily destroy the cloud from the inside!" the sergeant yelled.

"Are you crazy! I told you, I've been in that cloud once, and once is _way_ more than enough!"

"We can destroy the cloud from inside, now come on!"

Now grabbing Danny's arm, the masked man started flying both of them towards the entrance to the dark cloud. They were flying through the air so fast that everything just seemed like a blur.

Danny tried to breathe as he and the sergeant continued to fly closer and closer to the cloud. Slowly, after the last Bhyspawn had flown in, the hole in the cloud started closing up. Slowly, the dark matter of the cloud began filling up the hole, sealing the entrance up.

"Hurry!" Danny yelled. If he was going to have to go inside the cloud again, he would want this to be the last time. He wanted to get this over as quick as possible.

The only thing that wasn't whooshing by the two too fast to see was the cloud. It got bigger and bigger as Danny and the sergeant continued to fly closer and closer to it, but unfortunately, the hole got smaller as they got closer to it. They'd have to be lightning fast if they were going to make it in time.

The sergeant's black hair was flowing just as furiously in the wind as Danny's was, and his light blue eyes starting watering from the high-pressure winds created as he flew through the air, going well over a hundred miles an hour.

At long last, both of them made it to the bottom of the cloud. They didn't say anything, but launched themselves inside, just as the last bit of the hole closed up. Both of them made it by a hair. After that short, but critical race, both of them were now inside the cloud, where they hoped to fight Bhyrun for the last time.

The entire inside of the cloud was pitch black, like a deep patch of woods with no moonlight at midnight. Danny and the sergeant were quietly walking around, looking for Bhyrun and going to fight him.

After a short while of searching, they saw a door into a massive room. It looked more like a throne room when Danny and the sergeant walked in. There was a long pathway leading up to a small flight of stairs, and sitting in a chair in the center of the highest step was Bhyrun, giving them a face that would be enough to give a child younger than eight years nightmares for a week.

Bhyrun started laughing. He stood up and started slowly walking towards the stairs, but stopped just as he could step down onto the next one. Now, Danny had a chance to really look at Bhyrun, and he could pick up on things he never could before. Bhyrun had a bald head, and his head actually looked very similar to a skull. He had a very thin smile, and his eyes were red enough to make someone think he was possessed. His only piece of clothing was a deathly black that went from a collar that went around the back his neck all the way down to the ground. While the cloak looked very light, it still covered every part of his except for his face and his bony, white hands.

It was at that moment Danny gasped. He had _seen_ Bhyrun before. When he was babysitting Toby and the bottle smashed and the dark clouds started spurting from it, Danny could have sworn he saw a face in all the black smoke, and if he remembered it correctly, the figure in the black smoke looked _exactly_ like what Bhyrun looked like now.

"Well, I suppose this really is a coincidence," Bhyrun said with an evil smile spreading across his face. He looked at Danny and the sergeant over and over. He seemed to be overwhelmed with disbelief, but it didn't take the evil smile off his face.

"Danny…" Bhyrun hissed. "Is it really you? Image, of all people!"

"What are you talking about!" Danny demanded.

Bhyrun just chuckled, and then looked right into Danny's eyes. "This is quite an odd place for a family reunion, don't you think, Danny?"

"What are you talking about!" Danny once again demanded. "Quit talking in cryptic half sentences!"

"What? He didn't tell you?" Bhyrun asked in a surprised way, but still keeping the creepy smile on his face. "Who do you think that person is you're standing next to?"

"He's a police sergeant!" Danny yelled. "He showed up and arrested Skyler the night he started going insane!"

Danny looked at the sergeant at his side, but the sergeant had a bit of a nervous expression, almost like he was hiding something.

"…aren't you?" Danny squeaked out as he stared at the sergeant. It was at that moment that Danny knew something was being hidden from him.

Bhyrun continued chuckling. "So, you don't really know? Well then, maybe I should fill you in on the details…"

Danny was now breathing heavy, trying to brace himself for whatever Bhyrun was about to tell him. He gulped as Bhyrun got ready to talk.

"That man, standing right beside you," Bhyrun said, pointing to the sergeant, "he's really a mage from 1368, just like I am."

Danny's eyes widened, and he shot a quick glance at the sergeant. The sergeant definitely knew he was in some trouble now.

"Well, now that you know you the truth, there's nothing else I need to do with you. Maybe I'll let you both rot in here while I take over the world!"

"It would be nice if you were a bit more original in your plans," Danny said to Bhyrun as two Bhyspawn came into the room and grabbed Danny and the sergeant by the back of their arms and led them out of Bhyrun's throne room and into a dungeon of the cloud.

When Danny and the "sergeant" were thrown into a dungeon, a door was slammed on them and they were locked in. The room was cold, and the floor seemed hard enough to be made of stone. It seemed like it had a nice amount of space for people to move in, but there was nothing in it except for walls and the floor.

Danny started pacing around the room while the "sergeant" just stood there. Danny continued pacing, trying to figure out how they were going to get out of this problem. Finally, Danny just stopped and turned his head towards the sergeant.

"Would you mind explaining this?" Danny asked with his arms crossed, staring at the sergeant.

The sergeant sighed heavily, and then looked up. Even though the room had little light in it, he could clearly see Danny's face.

"All right," he said after a while. "Back in 1368, Bhyrun was a very powerful mage. He got captured in a war by an enemy country, and he converted to using his powers for offense reasons instead of for protection."

"I know that much," Danny said. "How does that explain everything now, though?"

"You see, Bhyrun became much too powerful for anyone's comfort then. A few other mages and I were sent to battle Bhyrun and defeat him. I was the only mage fighting Bhyrun that survived."

Danny was going to have to listen closely. The rest of the information that the sergeant would reveal would stun him to such a high extent, that words would not even describe it. The information would soon give Danny more motivation than ever to make sure Bhyrun was finished permanently.


	28. The Truth, Part 2

The dungeon was silent as the mage from 1368 continued telling the story of how he and some his fellow mages were sent to battle and defeat Bhyrun, the mage who turned against his country and started using his powers for more aggressive and personal reasons rather than for protection. Danny was about to find out the turnout of that fateful fight against Bhyrun, all those centuries ago.

Danny was secretly afraid of learning this, but he didn't show it. He wanted to keep listening so he could finally get to the bottom of everything. "So, what happened? Did you win?"

"I guess you could say that," the sergeant continued. "Bhyrun was still too powerful, but he was beaten for the time being. If I let him go, he would come back stronger and more powerful, so I had to use my greatest powers to seal him away. I took a bottle and sucked Bhyrun into it, and then I sealed it. As he got sucked in, Bhyrun said he swore revenge."

"Wait a minute!" Danny yelled. He started trying to recall all the information that Sam and found on Tucker's laptop (back in Chapter 8). He remembered Sam saying that the website claimed Nouron won the fight by locking Bhyrun away in a dark bottle. Danny froze up with fear.

"…no…" Danny said, thinking everything through. "You can't really be Nouron!"

The sergeant just gave Danny a serious stare. Danny took that as an automatic "yes".

Danny was awestruck. He could not believe it. How could someone who Danny met and looked like a regular person really be the one who defeated Bhyrun that long ago?

"Come on, quit making stuff up!" Danny yelled, not sure what to say. "You're a police sergeant! You can't really be someone from the middle ages!"

"You can't honestly think I was really a sergeant," he said in a disappointed tone. "Have you not noticed I could fly and fire rays out of my hand and do attacks with the tip of my sword? Can you think of _one_ sergeant _anywhere_ that could do that!"

Danny was at a loss for words. He didn't know what to say. It was hard to believe that he was actually talking to a powerful figure from 1368. Finally, he spoke up. "So, what now?"

"Well, that bottle you found on the beach and opened up…that was _really_ the bottle Bhyrun was in. After I sealed him in it, I cast it into the water, hoping that it would never reach the shore."

"And it found its way to the beach I was at!" Danny yelled, not being able to believe it. "This is awful! Of all people who had to find it, it had to be me! Ugh…that's the worst bad luck I've ever had in my life! I wish that never happened!"

"Hold on," Nouron said, trying his best to make Danny less hectic and to calm him down. "Believe it or not, you being the one to find that bottle and to open it is the greatest thing we could have ever hoped for if the bottle were to be reopened."

"What? Why!" Danny yelled. Nothing was making sense to him anymore. "Because I have ghost powers or something like that?"

"No," Nouron calmly replied. The dungeon seemed to get quieter and quieter with everything Nouron had to say. "To truly defeat Bhyrun, a blood relative of mine would be the only one capable of performing the feat."

"What are you talking about?" Danny asked, not really needing an answer to that question.

"What I mean to say, Danny, is that I'm an ancestor of yours. My blood flows in you," Nouron revealed.

Danny was now _really_ not sure what to say. His heart rate began increasing, and he was getting more and more nervous as the conversation went on. "So, you're like my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather or something?"

"Exactly," Nouron said. "See? You are the only living one on this planet now who has the potential and the power to stop Bhyrun once and for all."

Danny was breathing heavily. This was getting way too weird for him. He was trying to take into account the staggering odds that of all people to find the bottle in the water and to open it, it had to be him. And he of all people was a descendant of the one who put that cursed bottle in the water. Now it was Danny's responsibility to defeat Bhyrun, because being a descendant to Nouron, he had some special power that would enable him to be the only one who was able to do it.

"Well, what do we do now?" Danny asked.

"Quite simple, we're going to have to eliminate Bhyrun once and for all."

The room once again fell incredibly silent. The dark dungeon was getting creepier by the moment as neither Danny nor Nouron continued to speak. There was nothing to be heard except the sounds of both of them breathing.

"Well, what are we waiting for!" Nouron yelled. "Don't you think we should go out there and destroy him?"

"Dude, I'd love to," Danny started, "but we're kinda locked in a dungeon, in case you didn't notice."

"Now's not the time to be smart," Nouron said, calmly. "Besides, we could just break out of it, you know."

"What do you mean? It's not like we're in a James Bond movie where we punch the guard out and then pick the lock with a super-powerful paper clip."

Nouron just grunted, annoyed by the remarks Danny was making. "Just fire your power down at the floor."

"What?...why!"

"It will dissolve the floor, hopefully. Now come on!"

Danny just did what Nouron told him. They both started firing their strongest blasts of energy down at the floor. Some steam started to come from the floor as they were firing at it, and a small _hiss_ sound was heard as the steam was coming up. After a long time, part of the floor actually disappeared and left a small hole in the stone floor. Danny looked down the hole and was surprised to find that he could see down to the ground. Firing at the floor really _did_ make a hole right out of the cloud to escape through.

"All right, let's get outta here," Danny said. He jumped through the hole in the floor, but he still continued to levitate in midair. A short time later, Nouron hopped out of the cloud, but he was able to float right next to Danny, too.

"Where to now?" Danny asked. "Do you think we should fly back to our hotel and plan a surprise attack on Bhyrun there? Because I really want to end this thing as soon as possible."

"_You_ want to end it?" Nouron asked in a way that gave the impression Danny was being selfish. "I've been waiting over 600 years! If anybody is going to complain about wanting this thing to end, I think it should be _me_! Don't you?"

"Fine," Danny groaned. "Can we just please head back to the hotel to plan on that strike?"

"Yes," Nouron said. The two of them began flying towards the ground and back towards Danny's hotel room.

When they were close to the ground, they heard a demonic voice scream something. "LEAVING, SO SOON?"

Danny and Nouron instantly turned around, and there was Bhyrun, floating in the air with his long, dark cloak flowing in the wind. Behind him were over thirty Bhyspawn, each one of them looking hungry and violent.

"You think you guys are so good, escaping from the dungeon in my cloud?" Bhyrun demanded. His eyes seemed to get redder and freakier with every word he said. "You didn't even let my Bhyspawn say good-bye to you. Well, I'll save them the work. Goodbye, Danny and Nouron!"

Saying that, Bhyrun waved his hand in the air, like some sort of signal. Instantly, the Bhyspawn all started charging at the two, leaving Danny and Nouron no choice but to instinctively blast the Bhyspawn to defend themselves.

The two began looking all around them, trying to watch out as all the Bhyspawn began charging at them. They fired blast after blast, and the attacks seemed to do a lot of damage to whatever Bhyspawn they hit. (Danny especially, since Nouron had given Danny a fair amount of his own power)

At one point, a Bhyspawn came up from behind and jumped on Nouron's back, knocking him to the ground. The Bhyspawn lifted up its arm and prepared to slice up his face with its massive claws, but just as it was about to, it felt a tap on the shoulder. It turned around and saw Danny there, who immediately punched it in the face.

Danny and Nouron found themselves holding back, because they both knew the Bhyspawn were real people, and they hated the fact that the things that they were trying to kill were once regular people.

But still, the fight continued. Danny and Nouron insisted on still firing energy at the Bhyspawn, trying to knock as many out as possible. But it was hard, not only because they hated the idea of hurting real people, but the Bhyspawn were still very strong, and there were a lot of them. The two had to keep on their wits as they struggled to defend themselves from the violent servants of Bhyrun.


	29. Bhyrun's True Power

All right, you know the drill now. Before I begin, I want to say thanks to Horselvr4evr, Leppers and GhostBoy for all their reviews to this point. (And more thanks to Lepper for reading and reviewing my other fanfic, _Revelations and Revenge_) You guys have actually given me the motivation to continue with this, so thank you for that. And Horselvr4evr, let me try to answer the questions you put in your last review: _yes_, that is why I called this story _Descendant's Curse_. Yup, it took 28 chapters to figure out why I did, but that's why. As for how much longer the rest of the story will be, I'll just keep you in suspense, since I'm good like that. : )

Please keep the reviews coming, guys! You've been awesome!

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The fight raged on and on between Nouron and Danny versus the fleet of Bhyspawn that Bhyrun had just sent down to attack. Even though they knew that the Bhyspawn were real people, Danny and Nouron couldn't hold back, because it would mean their lives if they did, and if they both died, no one would be able to defeat Bhyrun.

"Take…this!" Danny yelled. He fired a blast of energy into the face of one of the Bhyspawn, and it roared in pain and fell backwards.

Danny turned around to see how Nouron was handling all of the Bhyspawn, and he seemed to be doing a pretty good job with it. He was able to turn around in a split second and punch or kick a Bhyspawn in the face while being able to fire a blast of energy from his hand at a Bhyspawn behind him at the same time. Of course, what would you expect from someone who had been fighting these kinds of creatures all his life?

It wasn't long before it looked like Danny would be overpowered. There were Bhyspawn closing in on him, and Nouron had his hands full fighting his own Bhyspawn. In just a matter of seconds, all the Bhyspawn around Danny were on top of him, the way football players are on top of each other after simultaneously trying to make a great tackle.

Danny struggled to move, but the Bhyspawn were way too heavy for him to move. He tried to use one last burst of energy and got up and fired energy out of anywhere he could. It worked, and he was able to spring up and throw every single Bhyspawn on top of him off and into the air.

Now running completely on adrenaline, Danny fired blast after blast at all of the Bhyspawn, almost like his hands were machine guns. The Bhyspawn started to lose their power and began to slow down and attack with less force.

For some reason, Danny thought it was kind of funny to see dark red, massive bear-like creatures with green eyes and sharp teeth and claws walking slowly and whining like a little baby while they were in pain.

After another blast or two, Nouron went over to a Bhyspawn he had been fighting for a while and fired a blast from his hand at it. The Bhyspawn fell on the ground, and it slowly began disintegrating, just like all Bhyspawn do when they are defeated. As the Bhyspawn disappeared, it turned into a puff of smoke, and it looked like it was flowing to a certain place. In the past, when a Bhyspawn was defeated, its body would turn to smoke and just float in the air. But now, it looked like it was actually flowing to a certain place.

Trying to ignore that sight, Danny and Nouron continued battling the Bhyspawn. One by one, the Bhyspawn disappeared after they were defeated and the puff of smoke that once made them up.

After what seemed like a never-ending battle, almost all the Bhyspawn were dead. Danny and Nouron hated the fact that they had just killed what were once people, but once again, they knew that if they got soft and let the Bhyspawn win, then Bhyrun would continue his reign of terror and there would be no telling what would happen after that.

Just as almost all the Bhyspawn were down, a terrible thought popped into Danny's head. _Oh no, what if one of those Bhyspawn were Sam? Or Tucker? I hope I didn't just kill my two best friends…_

"Danny! I think we got most of them!" Nouron yelled, snapping Danny awake. "All of the Bhyspawn are either defeated or too tired and injured to continue fighting!"

"Uh…great!" Danny yelled, trying his best not to think about the possibility that one of the defeated Bhyspawn could have been his friends.

Nouron sharply turned around, and his blue eyes seemed to be flaring with anger. He stared at Bhyrun, ready to attack him. "Come on, Danny! Let's finish off this guy now!"

But Bhyrun didn't seem to look too afraid. In fact, he actually started chuckling. This made Nouron very nervous, obviously.

"Ha!" Bhyrun yelled. The smile on his face was scary enough to give an elderly person a heart attack. "I knew you would be able to beat my band of Bhyspawn!"

"What are you talking about?" Danny said, running over besides Nouron and stared at Bhyrun as he floated in the air above them.

"You two are obviously stronger than these Bhyspawn. Heh, I even found out that the child could take down Bhyspawn before you even gave him your power, Nouron!"

"Are you just trying to make us think you have some ingenious plan when you're really worried about how your entire army is dead and you don't want us to know it?" Danny asked, crossing his arms.

Bhyrun just laughed. "You, Danny, of all people, should know that when a Bhyspawn disappears, it starts to disintegrate into patches of smoke and drift off into the air?"

"Yeah, Skyler taught me all of that," Danny said.

"Then surely you noticed the smoke drifting off into a specific place after these Bhyspawn were defeated?" Bhyrun asked, the smile on his face growing more and more.

"I noticed that," Nouron butted in. "Were you controlling that?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I was!" Bhyrun yelled. "I have developed a new power that not even you know of, Bhyrun! I can take energy from my minions once they're defeated and absorb it! Now I'm stronger than I was before all those Bhyspawn were defeated!"

Now, things were getting really bad. Danny thought that with Skyler dead, Bhyrun would be weaker. (Nouron even thought that, too) But now that it was known Bhyrun could absorb energy from defeated Bhyspawn and enhance himself, destroying Bhyspawn would only become harder than it already was.

Bhyrun started chuckling again. "Yes…YES! Now I can feel the energy of my defeated minions swelling up within me! I can feel it!"

Suddenly, Bhyrun started flashing different colors, but still remaining the dark shades of his clothes and the pale shades of his face. After the change in colors happened, Bhyrun looked like he normal again, but just by looking at him, Danny and Nouron could tell he was stronger than before.

Now, Bhyrun's laugh was not only evil-sounding, but now intimidating. He started forming dark balls of energy in both of the hands at his side, and Danny could tell it would really, _really_ hurt to get hit by one.

"So, it's a fight you want?" Danny yelled. "All right then, Mr. Big-And-Bad! Bring it!"

Danny launched himself into the air and started firing his strongest blasts as fast he could. Nouron followed up by flying right up next to Bhyrun and giving him the hardest punches he could.

But as soon as Nouron's hardened fist was going to come into contact with Bhyrun's face, Bhyrun grabbed Nouron's fist and used it to throw Nouron backwards and onto the ground.

"Whoa," Danny said with no emotions. He was surprised by Bhyrun's new power that he could barely even think straight now. "Grabbing someone's fist and throwing them backwards with it? Geez, this guy's _crazy!_ I thought only ninjas from martial arts movies did that…"

Danny's trail of thought was interrupted when he received a heavy blast in the face from Bhyrun. He looked over and saw Bhyrun hovering right over Nouron, who was face flat on the ground and didn't seem to be moving.

"So," Bhyrun said, staring at Danny with malice in his expression, "do you wish to come back with me to my cloud and have a quick, painless death there, or will you resist and force me to crush you with every ounce of my strength."

Not expecting it, Bhyrun's face got blasted when Danny fired a sudden ball of energy at it. "How about option C: stop yapping, roll over and disappear?" Danny taunted.

Bhyrun got up as if he were in little pain and stared at Danny with a murderous face. He instantly went into "Overkill" mode and attacked as fast and as furiously as he could.

Danny, now worried that his life would end very abruptly if he got caught in Bhyrun's rage, started running away, but it was no use.

As Danny flew up and tried to make an air escape, Bhyrun fired his strongest blast and hit Danny in the back of the head. Danny screamed in pain, and then fell to the ground. He didn't remember anything after that.

"Hmm, are you awake now?" Danny heard a voice say. He heard Bhyrun's voice, but all he saw was pitch black. No wonder, his eyes were closed. He struggled to open them, and he finally was able to.

When he regained his senses, Danny found himself in a dark room, staring right into the face of Bhyrun. Bhyrun's face twisted into an evil gaze as Danny regained consciousness. It wasn't long before Bhyrun began speaking.

"So, you're awake. Excellent. I want you to see something before I destroy you for good," Bhyrun hissed.

"Gee, that's a comforting thought," Danny moaned as he was able to start looking around. He saw that he was inside Bhyrun's cloud once again, and in a familiar place: the dungeon! He was in the dungeon where he and Nouron were just in about an hour ago. It was pretty disappointing to be somewhere that you had just fought your way out of.

Bhyrun walked out of the dungeon, and a few seconds later, he came back with something: a bottle. But, this wasn't just any regular bottle. No, this bottle had a golden glow coming from it, along with something yellow-gold on the inside. It looked very similar to the dark glow that Bhyrun's bottle had when Danny opened it.

"You know what this is?" Bhyrun asked with a very nasty smile.

"Uh, the result of you drinking five sodas in one hour?" Danny asked.

Bhyrun's evil and cocky face turned into one of anger and rage. "You know, you children these days are much less mature than the ones from my time. If you were to ask me, I don't think it'd be wise to be making rude comments like that to your captor."

Danny only grunted. He stared at Bhyrun as his face returned to the evil one that had been on a few seconds before. "This is your ancestor, Nouron, in this bottle. He went down with much less of a fight than you did, surprisingly."

Danny gasped. Now, he couldn't take his eyes off the glowing bottle in front of him. He hated knowing that his only aid in destroying Bhyrun was stuck in there.

"_Danny…help…"_ was heard coming from inside the bottle. There was no mistaking it. It was Nouron's voice all right, and he seemed pretty helpless about getting out on his own.

Bhyrun once again began laughing. He was about to say something before Danny jumped in and said, "Is laughing the only thing you can do?"

Bhyrun turned his attention back towards Danny. He growled a little, but then got his calm attitude back. "Now, what would you say if I were to throw this bottle into the ocean, like he did to me over 600 years ago!" Bhyrun yelled, his voice getting louder and angrier with every word he said.

"No!" Danny yelled. He tried to grab the bottle out of Bhyrun's hands, until he realized that his arms were chained to a wall in the dungeon.

Bhyrun started laughing evilly (again) and took the bottle over to the hole in the floor that Danny and Nouron had made to escape a little while before. Danny saw that the cloud had moved since he escaped and that right under the hole was the ocean.

Bhyrun held the bottle with Nouron in it right over the hole. He was about to drop it into the ocean, and there was nothing Danny could do about it, being chained to the wall.


	30. Into the Ocean Blue

"Wait! Stop!" Danny yelled desperately. He gave it all his might trying to break himself free from the chains that Bhyrun had trapped him in. "Don't do it!"

Bhyrun was holding the bottle that had Nouron trapped inside of it right over the hole that would lead right into the ocean if he were to drop it. He kept passing slow, evil glances towards Danny, not taking the malicious sneer off his face for one second.

Slowly, Bhyrun started loosening his grip on the bottle, one finger at a time. (just to torture Danny) Danny kept getting angrier and angrier as each second passed, and he _had_ to do something, or else Nouron would reach a watery grave and possibly never make it to the shore.

"Come on, Bhyrun!" Danny yelled, still trying to break the chains off his wrists that were keeping him stuck to the wall. "You don't want me to break myself free and _make sure_ you don't drop that bottle!"

Bhyrun gradually turned around and looked at Danny. "You're not in any position to talk, Ghost Child! Once I dump this bottle into the water, I'll finish you off! And once you're gone, none will stand in the way of my awesome power!"

"You know, that's what a lot of the bad guys say in movies, books or video games!" Danny insisted, trying his best to make Bhyrun nervous. (even though it was clearly not working) "Then the next thing you know…BAM! The good guy and the bad guy are duking it out and the evil guy gets something dropped on him, or he falls off of a ten-bazillion foot drop, or something!"

"Teenagers," Bhyrun mumbled to himself, turning away from Danny and giving his attention back to the bottle with Nouron in it as he was slowly letting it slip from his grasp and ready to drop it into the ocean below. "Always thinking about your violent movies and not spending enough time in the real world…"

"Hey, that's what my mom says!" Danny said, raising his voice as he kept trying to clink his chains together in hopes of breaking himself free.

"Well, I'm going to be the last one you hear it from!" Bhyrun yelled. He was not fooling around anymore and was ready to get rid of Nouron. "You've done nothing but cause trouble for me these past few centuries. Now, I'm finally going to have complete power, and there is nothing you can do to stop me! Not you OR your pitiful descendant!"

Danny continued groaning as he tried to push himself free of the chains on the wall, but now he didn't have much time left. In a matter of moments, Bhyrun would drop the bottle into the water, and any hope of defeating him would forever be gone.

Then, a miraculous thing happened. Danny used every ounce of strength he had and actually managed to free himself. After a loud clanking sound was heard, Danny watched in joy as he saw the chains that once bound him fall to the floor in a crumpled pile.

Bhyrun softly gasped, and then turned around to see Danny was no longer trapped. But as soon as he turned around, Danny fired a blast of energy right into his face.

Bhyrun got blown backwards by Danny's ectoplasma ray and smashed into the opposite wall. The bottle with Nouron trapped in it fell out of Bhyrun's hand and rolled into a corner of the floor.

Danny started running over to Bhyrun to attack him some more, but Bhyrun was ready. When he was only a few steps away, Bhyrun stuck his leg out and rolled it across the floor, tripping Danny and causing him to fall back-flat on the stone floor.

After a bit of moaning in pain, Danny slowly got up, but Bhyrun punched him in the side of the head and knocked him onto the floor again. Now Danny had much more trouble getting up. He now knew that Bhyrun not only had a bunch of powerful attacks, but he also seemed to have a ton of strength in his physical attacks.

Danny staggered, trying to get up. But once again, Bhyrun just gave him another solid hit, this time, on the place where the skull and the spinal cord meet.

Danny was now lying on the floor, barely able to move. Bhyrun once again started laughing as if nothing had happened, and he went towards the corner of the room where Nouron's bottle had landed itself.

After picking the bottle up, Bhyrun started walking over to the hole in the center of the floor more quickly, knowing that Danny wasn't about to waste any time at all trying to stop him from dropping it.

Just as Bhyrun was about to let the bottle go, Danny jumped up and tackled Bhyrun, sending them both hurtling towards the ground. The bottle fell out of Bhyrun's hands and once again started rolling away.

Danny and Bhyrun both got up and started firing rapid punches at each other. Initially, Bhyrun didn't take Danny as much of a threat, but after receiving a hard knock right between the eyes, he realized how powerful Danny truly was. After all, he had some of Nouron's power in him now.

"Erg…" Bhyrun growled, starting to get really frustrated by how much of a challenge Danny was proving himself to be. "You shall not win!"

"Oh, please," Danny groaned, rolling his eyes as he and Bhyrun continued dodging each other's punches. "I've heard more original lines in the clay animation Christmas specials!"

It was a long time before either one of them showed any sign of getting tired or worn down. But unfortunately for Danny, his energy was wearing thin a lot quicker.

After a few blows were exchanged, Danny was punched in the stomach and thrown to the side. Even though he was in great pain, he persisted and still fought.

Bhyrun was getting very upset with Danny being such a pain, and finally he had enough of it. He forgot about Danny entirely and instead ran over to the bottle, picked it up, and bolted towards the center of the room where the hole was.

Danny looked up, still a bit dizzy from the fighting he had just engaged in. When he snapped awake, he saw Bhyrun holding the bottle with Nouron in it right over the hole, but the nonsensical look on his bone-white face was gone and it was now serious and vengeful. He was going to drop the bottle down into the hole, and that was that.

Danny gasped when he saw the bottle about to fall through the hole. "Nooooooooooooooooooooo!..." he screamed.

Then it seemed like everything slowed down. Danny watched as the body dropped through the hole in the floor. Danny ran over to the hole and looked down just in time to see the bottle splash into the water below.

Danny stared down at the water after the bottle had just broken through the surface of it and began sinking to the bottom. It was only a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity before he looked back up at Bhyrun, who was now smiling the same way someone annihilates a player in a strategy game.

Danny got up and looked Bhyrun right in the eyes. His own eyes were now filled with the thought of death, vengeance and hatred. His bottom lip started bouncing up and down violently, his heart rate skyrocketed, and his fists clenched without him even realizing it. His breathing had now become labored and heavy, like Darth Vader without his helmet.

"You won't get away with this…" Danny threatened. His voice was low and in its normal tone, but just listening to it, one could tell that he felt like he wanted to grab Bhyrun by the neck and slam him onto a bed of sharp rocks.

Meanwhile, Bhyrun refused to take Danny seriously. He just started laughing evilly again, and Danny didn't want to hear it anymore. He then resorted to jumping though the hole, out of the cloud. He then started floating in mid air, but then pointed his head downwards.

Without even thinking about what he was doing, Danny took the deepest breath he could muster and did a nosedive and smashed right through the ocean water. His eyes had to squint for a few seconds to get used to the dark, murky area around him. He started swimming closer and closer to the bottom of the ocean, looking for wherever Nouron's bottle went.

The water was so dark, and the ice cold feeling of it didn't do Danny's cardiovascular system a lot of good. But, knowing how important it was for him to find the bottle, Danny continued to persevere, looking for the bottle and not giving up until he saw it.

Then, he caught a break a short while later: he saw a golden, yellow light breaking out from the dark water. He swam closer and closer to the glow, and when he was within arm's reach of it, he could clearly see the bottle.

"_Good thing that bottle glows with Nouron inside it," _Danny thought to himself. But then, another problem hit him. The pressure of being so deep underwater was making it harder and harder for him to hold his breath. If he didn't get out of the water soon, he would drown.

Danny grabbed the bottle, and then started swimming to the surface as fast as possible. His eyes were closing now, and his vision was becoming much more blurry. He could feel his heart rate accelerate so fast he thought it was going to burst inside of him. His teeth were grit and he made sure not to drop the bottle on the way back.

The surface was so close now; Danny could see the small rays of sunlight poking into the dark, cold ocean water.

At long last, Danny burst from the ocean with the bottle in his hand, finally being able to breathe again. He took a few deep breaths as he flew downwards and landed himself on a flat rock sticking out in the middle of the ocean.

Danny fell on his back, closed his eyes, put his hand over his stomach and started breathing at a fast pace. He coughed a few times, as well. Finally, when more oxygen was traveling through him, he was able to concentrate more.

His body was cold now, but it didn't really matter to him. He reached over at the glowing bottle and popped the open end of it off. Instantly, a bright tornado of swirling golden light started soaring out of the bottle, just like what happened when Danny accidentally let Bhyrun out.

After a few seconds, Nouron appeared out of the swirling tornado and slowly planted himself down on the rock a few inches away from Danny.

Nouron looked very pleased to have been let out from the bottle, but his glee turned to concern when he saw Danny. He saw that his seventeen-generation grandson was shivering cold with water dripping down from his snow white hair, and his black jumpsuit was even darker after all the water it had absorbed.

"Danny? What happened?"

Danny explained everything about Bhyrun dropping the bottle into the water and him going down to get it. Nouron seemed very impressed with Danny's urge to find it in the water, even when it looked like he was going to drown from it.

"Well, now that we're both okay again," Nouron said, "I think it's time we start thinking about the big problem that is facing us now."

"You mean Bhyrun?" Danny asked.

"Yes. He can obviously be a huge threat if he can take the power of his defeated Bhyspawn and use it to enhance himself."

"I know what you mean," Danny said. "That guy can really pack a punch. By the way, how exactly _does_ Bhyrun turn someone into a Bhyspawn?"

"He fires a ray from his hand that mutilates the person and turns them into it."

"That's what I thought," Danny casually said. "Hey, speaking of which…when Bhyrun tried firing that laser beam thing or whatever at me and tried to turn me into a Bhyspawn, it didn't work."

"I know."

"Well, do you know _why _it didn't?"


	31. Fighting the Cloud II

Before I start, here's a bit of an update. I don't know if any of you looked at my profile, but if you have, then you'd know it was completely blank. Well, for the first time in ever, I put stuff in there. So, if you want to take a look at it, please do.

---------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------- ---

Danny was finally going to have the last question on his mind about Bhyrun answered. Nouron was explaining to Danny why the beam that Bhyrun fired at him didn't turn him into a Bhyspawn like everyone else. At least, he'd find out as long as Nouron knew why. And luckily for Danny, it seemed that he did.

"Well, Danny, surely you noticed that he fired the beam at me as well?" Nouron asked.

"Yeah, and it didn't affect you either. What's up with that?"

"Danny, it didn't affect me because I am resistant to him and his attacks, mostly because I was the only person who had power over him."

"And how come the ray wouldn't turn _me_ into a Bhyspawn?" Danny demanded.

"It's partially because I'm an ancestor of yours, but I think you being part ghost also played some sort of role in it," Nouron coolly explained.

"Really?" Danny asked, not sure what to believe. "So you think it's a mix of the two?"

"That's my guess," Nouron said. "Even with your ghost powers to protect you, I still think you would have been turned into a Bhyspawn if it weren't you being related to me."

"All right," Danny said. By now, he had gotten used to the cold he was feeling all around his body after just getting out of the cold ocean and he had learned to ignore it. "Well then, what's the next thing we should do?"

Nouron looked at Danny almost like he was offended. "What do you think we need to do? We need to take down Bhyrun, that's what!"

"Sounds great and all," Danny said, "but won't we need some sort of plan if we're going to actually finish this guy off?"

"Yes," Nouron said. "But I think there is a bit of a problem with us going to fight him."

"A problem?" Danny asked, not sure he understood what Nouron was getting at. "What kind of problem?"

"You remember how I told you a while ago when you were fighting Skyler that by putting my hand on your arm I transmitted a lot of my powers to you?"

"Yeah," Danny said, looking at his arm. "I hope you're a type O, because I don't want you to have transmitted anything."

"Listen," Nouron said, disregarding that comment, "I really don't know if I am in any condition to go out there and fight Bhyrun and put his ways to an end."

"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!" Danny yelled, putting his palms out and waving them around in Nouron's face, "you can't be telling me you want me to take that guy on all alone!"

"Danny, listen to me!" Nouron said, trying to get Danny to think things his way. "Listen, I only have about 30 percent of my powers now; you have your own powers and the power I gave you. I think you stand much better hope of defeating Bhyrun."

"You're talking crazy!" Danny yelled. "Even if you weren't much of a fighter, you could always go in there as a distraction or for backup!"

Nouron sighed, and for once, he looked like he was showing his age. "Danny, I don't think I have it in me to fight anymore. Besides, fighting is not my nature. Surely you noticed I wasn't such a great fighter?"

"You were fine!" Danny insisted.

"Danny, this is the end." Nouron placed his hands on Danny's shoulders and stared deep into Danny's green eyes; so deep that he could clearly see his own reflection in Danny's eyes. "I want you to end this curse that has burdened your…no, _our_ family for generations. Are you willing to go it alone to end the suffering of all these Fentons and other people after all these years?"

Danny breathed heavily, knowing the daunting task that awaited him if he were to accept. After what seemed like forever, he took one last deep breath and looked right back at Nouron.

"I'll do it, if that's what you want."

Nouron smiled, and then closed his eyes. Instantly, his hands started becoming bright gold on Danny's shoulders, and Danny felt as if this warm, gentle light started swelling through his body. The sensation went on for a few more seconds before the light on Nouron's hands went out.

Danny felt the warm feeling in his body slowly die down. He put his hands out, and they seemed to glow the same color that Nouron had coming out of his hands. In a few moments, the light fizzled out. Danny was feeling more strength flow through him as he stared at his fists with his mouth wide open and breathing quickly and deeply.

"That's it," Nouron said. "You have all my powers in you now. Now, I'm really nothing more than a man who should have been put in a casket, buried and forgotten."

"Whatever, all I'm worried about now is fighting Bhyrun and beating him so this entire thing can be forgotten."

"All right," Nouron said. "You'd better get back to shore. You're going to need to break into that cloud and defeat Bhyrun one last time."

"Will do!" Danny confidently said. He stood up tall and went towards the edge of the rock, then looked up in the sky and saw the massive black cloud towering over them. Now, the cloud was back to hovering right over the mainland. Danny just stared at it with a cold glare for a while.

At long last, he broke the silence and looked back at Nouron for possibly the last time. He tried to give Nouron the best smile he could. "Well, I'm off."

Danny instantly turned around and started to jet into the air, but he was stopped by Nouron screaming, "Wait!"

Danny abruptly stopped and turned around to look at Nouron again. "Good luck, Danny," Nouron said with a hopeful, but very nervous smile on his face.

Danny smiled one last time, and then flew off back towards the main part of the beach where the cloud was now hovering. As he flew towards the cloud, several thoughts started running through his head.

Since he had first met him, Danny had now become attached to Nouron. He knew Nouron very well and was really beginning to trust him. Not only that, but now Danny had an inescapable bond with Nouron, now that he knew that they were blood-related. If he wasn't doing this for himself and to save all the people from Bhryun's reign of terror, then he was doing it for Nouron. After all, he was the one who had to suffer the longest.

It was a scary thought for Danny, not knowing what was going to happen to Nouron after Bhyrun was (hopefully) defeated. Seriously, what _would_ happen to him?

Danny tried to blot those questions out of his mind as he continued soaring towards the cloud. In a matter of moments, he was there, staring directly at it.

"_There it is," _Danny thought to himself. He glared at the cloud with a more intense look than he did on a test when he saw a question he was completely clueless about. _"Bhyrun's in there. In that cloud, the final battle awaits."_

Taking a deep gulp, Danny flew over to the cloud and attempted to go right through it. But, the armor proved to be extremely thick, and he wasn't able to go through it.

"Guh," Danny groaned after he hit the cloud, only to be bounced back like a marble being thrown at rubber. "That's no good. Fine, you want to play that way, Bhyrun? I guess I'll have to _force_ my way in!"

Danny prepared a blast of ectoplasmic energy in his hand and got ready to fire it at a spot in the cloud, until a loud blast was heard. At that moment, Danny got thrown back, as if a giant boulder had just been thrown at him.

"Ow! What the?..."

Danny looked around just in time to see a giant laser beam come flying at him. It made the same sound as the blast he heard before, meaning the same thing was being fired that had just hit Danny.

After looking around, Danny saw that the blast had come from the cloud itself. He recognized the laser blasts as the ones that almost hit the Fenton RV when he and his dad went out to try and "find" a weak spot in the cloud.

"That thing's still armed and dangerous, huh?" Danny asked, staring at it. "Fine, then! All right, let me show you what I got!"

Danny immediately started flying as fast as he could, hoping to confuse the cloud's sensors and to fire randomly in mid air without destroying anything.

The cloud fired beam after beam, and Danny kept dodging them by the skin of his teeth. Still, it was very disturbing to see such a thick, heavy, green laser beam come literally within inches of his head. "Man, that Bhyrun guy must be a powerhouse on the inside…"

Danny continued evading the blasts, but he eventually got it and was slammed to the ground, leaving bystanders screaming in terror when they saw how vicious the fight was getting between Danny and Bhyrun's cloud.

Just as the cloud was about to fire another blast (this one to be fatal) at Danny, he rolled out of the way and the thick laser blast hit the road, creating a massive pothole in it. Danny sprung up as soon as he stopped rolling out of the way, and he got in a fighting position. Now he was ready to go offense, instead of having to remain in a defense position.

"So, you like shooting lasers, do you!" Danny yelled aggressively. "Here's a little message from me!"

Danny fired a blast of energy at the cloud, but the blast actually ended up turning a really deep green. It was noticeably greener than before; Nouron's powers must have done something to it.

As the blast came into contact with the cloud, an obvious patch of armor on the cloud disappeared. In a whiff of steam, a small hole had been burned in the cloud.

"Whoa, is that what Nouron's powers can do?" Danny said excitedly, looking at the newly formed hole. "Sweet!"

Danny's moment of celebrating was cut short when he got blasted yet another time by the cloud's deadly beam.

Everyone down on the ground let out a chorus of gasps and shrieks, watching the battle as it raged on in the sky.

"_How dumb are those people?" _Danny thought to himself. _"I'm almost getting myself killed, and they're standing down there watching this like it's a show at Disney World!"_

Danny fired a quick blast at another spot on the cloud, and once again, he saw that the ray had burned a hole in it. Now sure that the rays he fired could burn a hole in the cloud's tough-as-nails armor, Danny now had to concentrate on where the lasers seemed to be coming from.

He got an answer soon. Just as he came up with a strategy as it formed in his head, he got blasted again, making everyone gasp louder. Clearly, some of them didn't know who they should be cheering for.

Danny had had enough by now, and he instead started igniting his fists. His fists became encased in balls of deep green ectoplasmic energy, and he flew over to the cloud and he started punching very fast holes in it. His punches were creating almost pretty strips of green as they flew through the air.

The cloud fired one last blast at Danny, sending him backwards, but he was expecting it this time. Now, he could clearly see where the laser blasts were coming from, so he decided to try to stop them.

Trying to go as fast as he could, Danny fired his blasts at the part where the cloud's laser came from. Instantly, that patch that had the laser in it started dissolving, creating nothing but a small black hole.

Danny breathed a very heavy sigh of relief, knowing that he just destroyed the cloud's main weapon. He flew over to the spot on the cloud where he punched a few holes just a few moments earlier, and he started firing a very steady beam at it.

In no time, the thick patches of steam were rising up from the place where Danny's beam had hit the cloud. A giant hole appeared in that section of the cloud, way big enough for Danny to fit through without much trouble.

Danny stared at the giant hole he had just created in Bhyrun's cloud using Nouron's last donated powers. Now, he couldn't believe it. Bhyrun was actually inside that cloud, and now Danny would go in there and confront him one final time. This time, the centuries-old fight would _officially_ be over, whether or not Danny won the battle.

Danny looked down and saw all the people giving him blank or terrified expressions. He tried his best to calm them down by yelling to them, "Don't worry, I'm gonna destroy this thing! Go inside and keep yourselves safe!"

The people seemed to obey, as they all started fleeing the scene. Danny watched to make sure every last one of them got inside a building safely. He then turned his attention back towards the huge hole in the cloud leading straight inside. He would go in there and fight Bhyrun…alone.

"Well, this is it," Danny said with no emotions. "The final battle awaits."


	32. Mono e Mono

Danny stared at the giant hole he had just created in the cloud. It was hard for him to believe he would go in there, and when (or if) he came out, the entire ordeal would be over. If someone asked him why he was going through with this just a few hours ago, he would have replied "So I can get it over with and I can finally relax on my vacation."

But now his answer would be significantly different. If someone were to ask him _now_, he would say "To finally stop all the pain and suffering that Bhyrun has put my family through for hundreds of years".

Danny found himself blanking out while he was thinking about what he was about to do, but only for a moment. He didn't waste any further time and flew inside the dark cloud, ready to fight Bhyrun one last time.

The darkness inside the cloud was so intense that it took Danny a little while for his eyes to fully adjust to it. Luckily, he could at least see what was in front of him due to the light coming in from the hole he created.

Danny debated to himself what he should do from here: should he run around, looking for Bhyrun and to battle him before he does anything terrible, or does he wait in the shadows for Bhyrun to come to him?

"I'm definitely letting him come to me," Danny said after thinking about it for a while.

He walked a little deeper into the shadows so it would be harder to see him, but just as he was about to sneak in to one of the dark areas, he heard something that made his heart skip a beat and almost caused him to jump out of his skin.

"Well, well, well, look who's shown up for more?" said a dark, cold voice.

Danny sharply turned around, and Bhyrun was standing there in a doorway leading to a room close to the room where Danny and Nouron had found him earlier.

Bhyrun's long, black cloak stood perfectly still around him. For the first time in a while, both of his hands were clearly visible, and they were cuffed on top of each other. His wicked grin seemed to be at an all time-high, and his red eyes now looked like enough to turn _Medusa_ into stone.

"Where's your friend?" Bhyrun asked. "The one with the mask?"

"Hey, you can call him by his name, you know!" Danny yelled. "I'm sure you know it anyway. And FYI, Nouron gave me all his powers to deal with you!"

"Ah, how touching," Bhyrun said, his twisted grin thinning, but spreading. "An ancestor of yours gives you all their power just for one lone battle."

"Yeah, so what say we start this thing?" Danny yelled. He cracked his knuckles, and then his hands started glowing a very deep shade of green.

Bhyrun chuckled. "This is something we've all been waiting for, has it not?" he hissed. "A battle between Bhyrun and the descendant of Nouron? Isn't that something we've all been waiting for?"

Danny didn't reply; he fired a blast of energy right at Bhyrun's head. Bhyrun ducked out of the way of it at the last possible moment.

"Why rush things?" Bhyrun asked. "If we've been waiting for this moment for centuries, let's cherish it for a little while." After saying this, Bhyrun's voice became surprisingly deep and sincere, almost like he was trying to command an army. "Come, my servants!"

Out of the doorway behind Bhyrun, several Bhyspawn jumped out and started snarling at Danny. Danny's expression of determination and hatred melted away to one of fear.

But not trying to show his scared side, Danny instead started acting like he was about to fight a regular ghost. His hands once again lit up and he pointed them at Bhyrun's throat.

"Attack!" Bhyrun yelled. He pointed his bony white finger at Danny.

Instantly, the Bhyspawn started charging at Danny like a pack of ravaging wolves. To defend himself, Danny jumped into the air and stayed just barely low enough for his head to not hit the ceiling.

"Okay, you guys are really losing your touch," Danny said. "Is charging in all you can do?"

Finishing the taunt, Danny fired a quick blast at one of the Bhyspawn, and it obviously did a lot more damage than it normally did.

"Wow, I guess combining my powers and Nouron's really paid off!" Danny yelled. "All right, you overgrown demonic teddy bears!"

All Bhyspawn seemed to get evidently angry with that remark. They started swiping at Danny in mid air, and they struck him down to the ground. Danny fell to the ground, and the Bhyspawn were just about to start stomping him to death.

At the last minute, Danny jumped into the air and was right between two Bhyspawn. He pushed both of his fists in opposite directions and gave the two monsters the hardest punch in the face that he could.

The two Bhyspawn that he punched got knocked backwards and landed solidly on the cold floor of the cloud and began disappearing. Normally, Danny would be getting choked up about knowing he just killed real people, but there were too many other things for him to worry about right now.

Danny turned around, thinking that he had just made a bit of a dent after killing three Bhyspawn. But he turned around and saw that there were still over forty Bhyspawn left for Danny to finish.

"You gotta be kidding me," Danny moaned. "All right, I hope I got enough energy after this to take on Bhyrun.

Danny pointed himself in the direction of the herd of Bhyspawn as they snarled at him and started biting down on thin air. When the Bhyspawn began taking slow, gradual steps towards him, Danny took in a deep breath and let it out with every ounce of his ghostly might.

The end result was a sound that emitted a devastating shockwave with enough intensity to cause an earthquake. It was the Ghostly Wail, one of Danny's most powerful attacks.

The entire cloud began vibrating as the seismic waves violently slammed against the wall. It sounded like being in the middle of an avalanche.

Meanwhile, Nouron was back on the mainland and stared up at the cloud as it was shaking. Awful thoughts came to his head as he saw the cloud shake as if a bomb had just exploded inside of it.

"Danny, what are you doing?" he nervously asked with a hint of sadness in his voice.

Meanwhile, back inside, all the Bhyspawn had just been scattered all around the room, like pins after the bowling ball struck all ten of them. They were moaning, but it didn't look like they were getting up any time soon.

Danny looked around, happy to see that he had just beaten all of the Bhyspawn, but that one ghostly wail already took almost all of his energy out of him.

"Heh heh heh heh," Bhyrun laughed, not opening his mouth. "Have you forgotten the ability I possess? You just ruined this battle for yourself, descendant of Nouron!"

"Will you please just call me 'Danny'? And what are you talking about?"

Without answering Danny's question, Bhyrun held his arms out and started glowing a little. Instantly, the Bhyspawn started turning white, and in a short while, their white matter started floating up into the air, now looking more like what liquid mercury would look like in outer space.

Danny stared in awe as he saw all the Bhyspawn that were once fighting him now were getting sucked into Bhyrun's body. Danny had forgot all about this part.

"Fool!" Bhyrun yelled. "Did you forget that with every Bhyspawn you defeat, I can suck in their material and make myself stronger!"

Danny had just made a giant mistake by killing all the Bhyspawn. (but then, he didn't have that much of a choice, did he?) Now that they were all dead, Bhyrun was going to suck in their material and make himself strong. Danny had tangled with Bhyrun once before after Bhyrun enhanced himself from defeated Bhyspawn. He was a lot tougher, and that was just after killing three or four Bhyspawn. This time, he sucked in over _sixty_.

And then another horrid thought came to Danny's mind. "Oh no. Please tell me one of those Bhyspawn weren't Sam and Tucker. But, if that was all of them, then…no…"

Danny was really worried about Sam and Tucker being okay to the extent where he completely dropped his guard when battling. Because of this, Bhyrun was able to fire a strong surge right at Danny, which proved to be very painful.

If Danny didn't have Nouron's powers, getting hit by that blast could have almost killed him. But thanks to some enhancements of his own, Danny was able to survive the blast and almost take it just as a wake-up call.

"All right, you're gonna pay now!" Danny yelled. He started charging at Bhyrun and hit him with such force that Bhyrun was knocked back like a line backer had just charged into him.

Bhyrun was sent backwards and smashed into a side wall of the cloud and hit it with so much force that a few pieces of the wall chipped off.

"Wow, a solid floor, a wall and a nearly impenetrable outside? Sheesh, it feels more like I'm in a building than a cloud."

As he finished this thought, Danny saw Bhyrun get up from the crumpled heap he was in on the floor and started getting ready to attack again.

"Fool!" Bhyrun yelled again. "I will terminate the people of Nouron's lineage!"

He ran over to Danny and grabbed Danny by the neck, keeping his grip just light enough so he wouldn't snap it.

Danny struggled to breathe as Bhyrun kept the solid grip on his throat. Bhyrun painfully began dragging him over to a wall. When they were both at the wall, Bhyrun took his fist and smashed the side of the cloud wall with it.

To Danny's huge surprise, the wall of the cloud collapsed like it had been made of sand. Had sucking up all the Bhyspawn _really_ given Bhyrun that much more strength?

Still keeping a strong grip on Danny's neck, he Bhyrun held the ghost boy outside but kept himself inside.

Now Danny was outside the cloud, and if Bhyrun were to let go of his throat, he would fall to his death hundreds of feet below.

"You've put up quite a fight," Bhyrun said, and Danny could tell he was loosening his grip. "But now, it is time to have you out of my hair _forever_."

Bhyrun was about to drop Danny to the ground below, but at the last second, Danny kicked his legs up and kicked Bhyrun vertically between the legs. While that was sure to cause a lot of pain for obvious reasons, it wasn't why Danny did that.

As soon as Bhyrun let the slightest moan of pain out, Danny pushed his legs up as hard as he could, and it actually pushed Bhyrun forward when enough force was applied.

Bhyrun came falling out of the cloud when Danny had pushed him out with his feet. Bhyrun let out a loud scream as he accidentally let go of Danny. Danny also started falling, but instantly gained control.

Now, Danny was floating in mid air as he stared down at Bhyrun. Bhyrun was now hurtling towards the ground. Danny smiled, seeing that his enemy would soon fall to the ground would such an impact that a jigsaw puzzle could be made out of him.

Then, something happened that Danny did not expect. When Bhyrun was close to the ground, he suddenly stopped and sprouted his own demonic looking wings. Faster than Danny thought was possible, Bhyrun flew up and was soon staring him right in the face again.

"Oh, great," Danny said.

The first thing Bhyrun did was give Danny the hardest blow to the head that he could muster.

Considering the fact that Bhyrun was now stronger after enhancing himself with the Bhyspawn, the shot would be enough to kill anyone. But thankfully to Danny's resistance to pain as a ghost, and _especially_ after Nouron gave him his powers, the blow didn't hurt him too badly.

Danny shot back by the firing a series of rapid punches to Bhyrun's face, as well as giving a bunch of kicks to the stomach. Bhyrun was obviously taking a considerable amount of pain from it, and finally he found the strength to counter.

Bhyrun fired his fist into Danny's stomach, knocking the wind out of him. He then resorted to flying over to a tree and pulling off a huge branch that was long enough to be considered a spear. He then flew back over to the cloud with Danny in one hand and the branch in the other. He slammed Danny on the top of the cloud back-flat.

Danny was now in so much pain he could barely move.

Now, Bhyrun truly looked like he was ready to annihilate anything that came his way. He looked like his thin structure was now completely made of muscle, and his deadly looking wings were now sharp enough to stab someone if they were hit forcefully.

As Danny squirmed around on top of the cloud, trying to get up, Bhyrun held out the long branch and pointed an end of it at Danny.

"This ends here!" Bhyrun yelled.

Danny didn't need to be in the best physical to know Bhyrun was about to stick the branch right through him and impale him onto the cloud.


	33. Battle of Fate

Danny could hardly believe it. It was finally the end of it all. This very battle was what everything had been leading up to. Finding the bottle on the beach, breaking into Skyler's lab, seeing Sam and Tucker get turned into Bhyspawn, meeting the masked guy who turned out to be the police sergeant, who ultimately turned out to be Nouron, Danny's ancestor from the year 1360, to fighting Skyler and finally killing him, to rescuing Nouron from a watery grave and getting all of his powers…this fight he was in now was the result of all of those incidents. The only thing Danny didn't know was whether or not this fight would end in a good way, or in a bad way. If he won, then Bhyrun would finally disappear forever and no longer be a threat. But if _Bhyrun _won, there'd be no telling of what he would do to everyone and everything.

Bhyrun was holding the branch, and was ready to stick it right through Danny's gut and kill him. But just as he did that, Danny went intangible at the last minute and the branch passed right through him.

Danny rolled away from the stick and was very careful to make sure he didn't make himself solid again until the branch was no longer passing through him. When he was positive it was safe, he became visible again and started floating up.

"I'm telling you, Bhyrun," Danny yelled, looking at his opponent, "this is it! The 600 year struggle ends today!"

"Splendid," Bhyrun hissed. He looked like some kind of demonic mix between Bigfoot and a vampire bat. He had grown to about ten times his normal size and his eyes were about half as big as a human hand, not to mention they were a devastating shade of pure white. "Then this shall be my last day of waiting for my reign of control to come."

"You completely missed the cue," Danny groaned. Saying this, he fired a blast at Bhyrun, and it knocked him backwards a little.

Bhyrun, now grumbling and getting very upset, took the massive branch he had broken off and started swinging it like a baseball bat at Danny's head. Danny had to keep ducking it at the very last minute to make sure Bhyrun literally didn't knock his head clean off his shoulders.

Danny then took a giant risk, knowing that just ducking from the tree branch wouldn't do him any good. When he saw the tree branch once again coming to smash the side of his head, he grabbed it and prevented Bhyrun from being able to swing it any longer.

Both adversaries let out a loud grunting noise. Both of them were now standing on top of the solid, dark cloud and were playing tug-of-war with the branch. Being several hundreds of feet in the air would be enough to scare Danny out of his wits, but he was concentrating on this fateful battle right now.

Finally, both of them actually pulled too hard and the branch came crashing down right onto the cloud's surface. It split in two, and both of them grabbed for an individual piece.

Bhyrun and Danny now had a long piece of the branch, and they started dueling each other with them, as if the branches were swords.

Danny had to use both of his hands to swing the branch around, and so did Bhyrun. However, Bhyrun seemed to have a much easier time swinging the branch around due to his enhanced strength.

The branches continued to clash as Danny and Bhyrun never took their eyes off of each other. Fighting with branches like swords would make Danny nervous enough, but knowing that if he made one wrong step, he could fall off the cloud and plummet to the ground.

The fighting only got worse and worse. Danny was running out of juice while Bhyrun just seemed to be getting more and more energy with every swing he took.

After taking a few mindless and savage hacks at Danny's branch, Bhyrun was finally able to snap Danny's weapon in two. Now completely defenseless, Danny could only walk backwards as Bhyrun continued jabbing him in the stomach with his branch as he pushed the descendant of his enemy closer and closer to the edge of the cloud.

After a few more jabs, Danny almost slipped and fell off. He quickly turned around, letting out a small, but terrified gasp. He saw that if he took one more step backwards, he would fall off the cloud and fall to his death.

Bhyrun's evil face got more and more twisted and demonic. But he was then surprised by something. Danny actually started to look brave and stared at him right in the eyes.

"This…ends…now!" Danny yelled in a tone with more confidence than a cocky contestant on a game show. He then abruptly turned around and jumped off the cloud himself.

Confused at what Danny was doing, Bhyrun went over to the side and looked over. Danny was nowhere in sight, like he completely disappeared.

Now suspicious that something was wrong, Bhyrun sprouted his sharp wings and flew off the cloud, but still levitated in the air.

"Where'd you go?" Bhyrun hissed, looking around the empty air around him. "If you have _any_ blood lineage to Nouron, you didn't just give up, commit suicide and let me win!"

As he looked around, a sudden blast came out of nowhere and hit Bhyrun in the back of the head. He screamed in pain, not expecting a blast, therefore not being able to mentally prepare himself for the impact.

"No, I didn't!" yelled a familiar teenaged voice in agreement. Bhyrun turned around, and Danny had stuck himself to the underside of the cloud. That allowed him to hide in the shadows and be very hard to spot until he decided to attack.

Bhyrun growled angrily, and then fired a blast of dark energy at Danny. The ray hit Danny right in the chest, and he got blown back by it. He started falling to the ground until he seemed to slam on invisible brakes and fire himself back up into the sky with Bhyrun.

"You're not getting off that easy!" Danny yelled.

Bhyrun had forsaken the long range attacks now and was more determined to just knock Danny out, quickly and painfully. He flew over and tried to give Danny a quick punch to the stomach, but he was on to Bhyrun's tricks now.

"Please. If you're going to try and do close-combat, _at least_ try to have a bit of surprise in it," Danny criticized.

Not taking any note of it, Bhyrun continued throwing punches, and Danny had to act like an elastic band and bend any way he could in order to dodge all of them.

After a while, Danny finally got tired of it. "All right, you wanna throw punches? Go ahead!"

Danny tried his best to focus all his energy into two pieces, attempting to duplicate himself. It had only worked once in the past, and that was when he was hoping to break into Skyler's lab.

To Danny's great surprise, it worked. He had successfully split himself into two separate beings, one real and one fake. Bhyrun's face went from aggressive and sure of himself to confused.

"Come on!" Danny yelled. "Punch one of us already. Just be ready to face some consequences just in case you choose wrong."

Bhyrun passed quick glances as both Dannys stared at him with a cocky look and crossed arms. After stuttering for a little while, the real Danny screamed, "Time's up!" and blasted Bhyrun in the face.

Bhyrun was knocked to the ground with the attack, and Danny seized the moment. He leapt over to Bhyrun and started delivering numerous blows to Bhyrun's head, trying to dish out the most amount of damage possible.

It looked like Danny was winning for a while until Bhyrun used his brute strength to kick his enemy off of him. Danny was sent flying into the air, only to crash into the side of a building and slump to the ground.

Bhyrun slowly got up and began storming towards Danny, setting off any car alarms with massive vibration waves in a ten feet diameter. When Danny saw the massive beast that Bhyrun had become approach, he shot up into the air and landed on the roof of the building he had been thrown into.

Bhyrun sprouted his wings and flew on top of the building, actually causing a few cracks in the paved roof as he landed. Danny once again found himself being pushed backwards as Bhyrun approached.

Not wanting to fall off the roof, Danny ran to the edge and jumped on the roof of a higher building, only to be followed by Bhyrun in close pursuit. The chase lasted until they both were on one of the highest buildings around, which was the hotel Danny and his family were staying at.

When Danny saw there was only one way to go from the hotel roof, he knew he was in trouble. His only hope was to hold Bhyrun off long enough on the hotel's roof to be able to make a quick getaway.

"Now I've got you, Ghost Child!" Bhyrun yelled, his voice full of spite and hatred.

Danny nervously watched as Bhyrun starting walking closer and closer, once again planning on forcing Danny off the edge of the roof. Then, Danny saw an opportunity he couldn't pass up.

Thinking fast, he fired some ectoplasmic energy at a steam valve pipe going down into the roof, presumably designed to help the building get some air conditioning. The pipe burst with Danny's blast, and thick white gases that would probably be dangerous to inhale sprung up and hit Bhyrun in the face.

Bhyrun began screaming in pain and frustration as the freezing gas sprayed into his face. Danny took this opportunity to fly off the roof and into the air once again.

After a few moments, the gas stopped spraying and Bhyrun was back to attacking. He started flapping his sharp wings and flew after Danny.

The following was nothing short of a chase happening in the sky. Danny had to pull off all his fanciest stunts and moves to try to get Bhyrun off his tail. Since Bhyrun was such a huge creature now, Danny thought that he would be slower, but to his surprise, Bhyrun was like a lightning bolt.

Bhyrun eventually grabbed a hold of Danny's leg and stalled him. Danny groaned while doing his best to claw himself free of Bhyrun's grip, but it was no use. It would have been easier to try to pull a nickel from a giant magnet.

Danny looked down and saw the ground hundreds of feet below them. He had only one shot at this, and if miscalculated, he could get killed instantly.

Taking a deep breath, Danny did a nose dive and pushed himself downwards towards the ground. Bhyrun wasn't expecting Danny to try this, and he ended up getting pulled down, too.

That moment, Danny and Bhyrun had become two meteorites, heading right for the ground below. Danny hoped that he could slam himself Bhyrun's stomach and hopefully cushion the impact of smashing into the ground.

The ground came closer and closer, and Danny hoped these wouldn't be the final moments of his life. At the last possible second, he sprung up (but still in Bhyrun's grasp) and grabbed a firm hold of his foe's abdomen. He then used all his strength to push Bhyrun so he'd be a in back flat position when he hit the tar.

It worked. The two of them hit the ground, but Bhyrun hit it while Danny was cushioned by Bhyrun's gigantic stomach. A huge dust cloud appeared around them, and when Danny was able to see again, he thought it was a miracle that he was still alive.

Bhyrun was lying on the ground, completely motionless. Danny hopped off of Bhyrun after they hit the ground, and then looked at him.

"Heh. I won, you lost," Danny said in a bad winner's tone. He walked away until he heard something from behind. It sounded like a really loud, angry moan.

Danny turned around and saw Bhyrun slowly getting up, not looking any different than he did before the fight even began. (except with some tar and dust all over him now) Smashing into the ground had created a mini-crater in the ground, and it became obvious how huge it was when Bhyrun started walking towards Danny again.

"Geez, you just don't know how to give up, do you?" Danny yelled. Luckily for him, though, Bhyrun seemed really wounded and was almost limping now. "All right, you're not gonna put up much more of a fight, are you?" Danny asked.

Bhyrun still continued limping towards him. His entire demonic body didn't look so threatening anymore, now that he was barely conscious after smashing into the ground from thousands of feet in the air.

Danny took this opportunity to deliver one more fatal blast. As Bhyrun continued to approach, Danny conjured up all of Nouron's newly given power within him and tried to send it through all parts of his body.

Now, Danny felt as powerful as ever. He fired a long blast of ectoplasmic energy, except this blast looked _much_ more yellow than green. The blast went into Bhyrun's mouth and came out the back of his head, like a laser beam.

Bhyrun screamed in pain as Danny fired the continuous blast through Bhyrun's skull. The longer he fired the blast, the more exhausted he got. Still, he wanted to fire the blast as long as possible, not wanting to give Bhyrun a second to attack.

Danny finally couldn't take it anymore. He stopped the blast and felt like he had just run a mile in under four minutes. He fell on his hands and knees and started breathing heavily. He was a complete mess after the fight he had just had against Bhyrun. His white hair was actually looking closer to gray now, there was dirt all over his face, and his jumpsuit was drenched in sweat that someone would almost think he wore it into a water park.

As Danny breathed heavily, he heard a loud scream. It sounded like what somebody would hear if Dracula died. The cry sounded loud and evil, as if some sort of evil creature was screaming it, but it also sounded full of pain.

Danny quickly shot his head up, but still stayed on his hands and knees. He looked in complete disbelief as he saw Bhyrun start to disintegrate. Steam started coming out of him, and he looked like he was shrinking.

"What…what's going on?" Danny asked as he saw the once feared and powerful Bhyrun start to diminish into nothingness.


	34. True or False?

"Bhyrun, you're…disappearing?" Danny asked in complete disbelief.

The aftermath of that painful battle that Danny shouldn't have won according to the odds was just like what the ocean would appear as after a hurricane. Just a few moments before, everything was outside and chaotic, and barely anyone could have survived in the middle of the action, no matter how hard they tried. Now, all the streets were deathly quiet. Nothing seemed menacing or dangerous anymore. Not even the massive black cloud as it hovered over the buildings.

"I…shall not lose!" Bhyrun screamed. He started to walk faster, but he just fell on the ground again. No sooner did Bhyrun fall on the ground did he start flashing weird colors.

Danny was confused as to why Bhyrun began flashing, and he was too afraid of something happening if he tried attacking. Because of this, Danny just laid low and let Bhyrun continue changing colors rapidly.

At long last, Bhyrun just jolted up and started screaming. He turned a solid shade of white, and bright beams of light started emitting from him. He screamed in even more pain, then white silhouettes of people starting flying out from within in. They looked like completely white ghosts.

"What the?..." Danny asked, not knowing what was going on.

The white silhouettes started gently floating in the air, and then slowly started falling. They gently tapped on the ground when gravity had pulled them onto it. The silhouettes stopped looking two-dimensional as they tapped onto the ground and started growing into fully fledged people.

Danny was staring down at the white figures as they started to take on the forms of people. One got up, and it slowly faded away from being white to turning into a person that Danny had never seen before.

Danny couldn't count how many of these mysterious white figures there were around him, but he honestly didn't care. He just wanted to know what they were doing, or what they meant.

After the sixth figure stood up and stopped glowing white and reverting back to a person, Danny thought of an idea.

"Wait a minute!" he cried. "Are you people…are you the ones who Bhyrun turned into Bhyspawn?"

The people looked at Danny like he was crazy or something. Obviously they had no idea that they had not just been turned into Bhyspawn, nor did they even have any idea what a Bhyspawn was.

Danny continued to look around in complete amazement as he saw the people changing out of the white forms and back to what they originally looked like. Then, he saw two figures that looked around his age growing into a three-dimensional white figure. One had short hair going around the back, and the other appeared to be wearing some form of headgear.

Danny gasped at the possibility of what those two figures were. Breathing heavily, he ran towards them, making loud grunting noises as he made his way through all the people. He was right in front of the two figures when they went back into their human form.

"Sam! Tucker!" Danny yelled with more happiness than he had ever yelled before. The white figures had just turned into his two best friends who had been turned into Bhyspawn a few days before.

There was no doubt in Danny's mind now that the people who were forming from the white matter in front of him were the people who Bhyrun had turned into Bhyspawn and used to enhance his power in the last battle. The people all around him were most likely the Bhyspawn he had defeated in the cloud with his ghostly wail.

"Danny!" they both yelled.

Instantly, the three of them pushed together and made a three-way hug. All of them were happy that the ordeal was finally over and everything would soon be back to normal.

"Oh man, I'm so glad you guys are okay!" Danny yelled happily, not loosening his grip on his friends. "I hated the thought that I could have killed you guys when I was fighting Bhyspawn."

"Danny, what happened?" Tucker asked. "What's going on here, anyway?"

But Danny didn't respond. He just continued to hug his two best friends. His eyes were closed, and the largest smile had spread on his face that had been there since their "vacation" evens started.

After a while, the three of them gradually let go of each other. Danny started to explain what just happened.

"Wait a minute!" Sam yelled, interrupting him. "You said you met Nouron? Isn't he the guy who our research said defeated Bhyrun back in the 1360's or something?"

"Yeah," Danny said with a smile on his face. "Even weirder, he's my ancestor. I'm related to him."

Sam and Tucker didn't say anything. They could only gaze off in disbelief at what Danny was telling them.

"Listen, you guys," Danny said. "Bhyrun used the power of his Bhyspawn I defeated to make himself stronger. It ultimately ended with him using the power of you guys as Bhyspawn and all these other people around here."

"And you had to fight him?" Tucker asked, making sure he understood everything.

"Yeah," Danny said, not taking the wide smile off his face. "I had to fight Bhyrun in his world-dominating form. It was a pretty tough fight, you know."

"And you handled it splendidly," said a pleased voice from behind them.

Danny shot around, and it was Nouron. It seemed Nouron also had a very pleased smile on his face.

"Nouron!" Danny yelled. He ran over and gave Nouron a hug, too. "Did you see that fight? Sheesh, that's one fight I _don't_ want to relive."

"And you don't have to," Nouron calmly said in a happy voice. "Look over there."

Nouron pointed over to a dark figure slumped on the ground. He had thick black robes on him, but he looked very thin and frail now. It was undoubtedly Bhyrun.

Danny ran over to Bhyrun and gave him an "I-won-you-lost" look. "What do you have to say to that, Bhyrun?" he sneered. "Don't want to mess with me anymore, do you?"

Bhyrun growled. "Curse you. You _and_ Nouron!"

"Danny, this centuries-old battle will officially be over once Bhyrun is dead," Nouron said calmly, looking right into Danny's eyes. "Once he is gone, the generations in our family will finally be at peace. Danny, I want you to do one last thing…"

Nouron reached from behind his long, shining cloak and pulled out his sword. "Open your hand," he ordered Danny.

Danny obeyed. Nouron put the gleaming sword into Danny's gloved hand. "It's been a long, hard time for you, Danny," Nouron said. "But you must do one last thing: you must stick this sword through Bhyrun and kill him."

"You don't have the guts!" Bhyrun challenged, firing spit out of his mouth as he continued to lie on the ground, unable to move.

"It'll all be over then?" Danny asked, unable to believe the very words. He took the sword, and then focused his eyes on Bhyrun. The happiness and relief in his eyes soon turned to anger and determination.

"Yes," Nouron said. As he heard that, Danny ran over to Bhyrun and held the sword above his head, ready to strike Bhyrun down with it once and for all. "Wait!" Nouron yelled, stopping Danny.

Danny turned around and looked at Nouron, curious as to what it was he wanted to say. Nouron didn't look too thrilled.

"When you defeat Bhyrun, I'm going to return to my own time," Nouron said.

"What? What do you mean?" Danny asked, starting to sound a little nervous.

"I'll be returning to 1368. I'll never have to come here again, and I'll finally be able to rest in peace."

Danny looked shocked to hear that he might never see Nouron again after killing Bhyrun. But he ignored it, knowing it would be selfish not to finish his family's generations of work just for that one reason.

Without saying a word, Danny walked over to Bhyrun. He ignored the sneer on Bhyrun's face as he raised the sword above his head. In one swift motion, he thrust Nouron's sword right through Bhyrun.

Bhyrun screamed in pain, but then his moan quickly died down. He slumped over onto the ground. His thin white fingers were no longer tensed up, but now relaxed. The same went for Bhyrun's grit teeth.

Danny watched as Bhyrun disappeared right in front of him, turning more and more invisible with every second. Only a short while later, Bhyrun was gone. He was finally dead, and the curse on Danny's family had finally been lifted after all these years.

Danny just stared in disbelief.

"It's…over…" he reassured himself.

Then, Danny looked up into the sky and saw something unbelievable. The black cloud started shaking violently, like there was some sort of earthquake inside of it. Then, it came crashing down towards the ground like a blimp when it's run out of fuel.

When the cloud was a few hundred feet off the ground, bright yellow lights burst from it. The entire cloud turned golden, and then it disintegrated into small particles.

For some reason, there was something emotionally touching about watching all the tiny gold photons disappear in mid air as the cloud burst into them. The cloud was no more.

Danny stared off, barely letting a sound out. Then he heard a hissing sound from behind. He turned around, and Nouron was also going invisible.

"Wait!" Danny yelled. "Don't go!"

"Danny, don't worry about me," Nouron said, still smiling. "You've done splendidly, and I'm proud of you."

"Hold on a minute!" Danny yelled, ignoring what Nouron just said. "Am I ever going to see you again?"

Nouron just continued smiling. "_Will_ you?"

Danny didn't say anything. He just watched as the last remaining traces of Nouron disappeared, possibly never to be seen again.

After Nouron was gone, Danny knew it was over. The cloud, Bhyrun, the Bhyspawn, and now Nouron…everything symbolizing or recalling the incident was gone.

Danny let a deep sigh of relief escape him. Although he wasn't looking, he could tell Sam and Tucker were staring at him. "Guys, can I get some time to myself?" Danny asked, looking down at the ground.

His two friends nodded their head, and then they quickly walked away. When Danny saw they were no longer in sight, he just sat down and curled up into a ball. He tucked his head between his legs, so his face wasn't visible. No one knew what his face looked like under there.

"Ah ha!" yelled a familiar voice. "Now I got you!"

Danny looked up. It was his father, Jack.

"Oh no…" Danny moaned.

"Oh yessssss," Jack said in an almost evil way. "I've been waiting for this moment for a long time, ghost child! Now, I'm finally going to capture you and keep you as my prize!"

Danny thought for sure he was going to get blasted by the Fenton Bazooka or sucked into the thermos, until he saw his dad's face look irritated.

Jack suddenly remembered that his daughter had forbidden him to bring ghost hunting equipment on the trip, so there was nothing he could do. "Errrrrrgggggh…JAAAAAAZZZZZZZZZ!" Jack yelled.

Danny smirked. "Talk to you later, old man," he said. After making that remark, Danny flew up and back towards his hotel, ready to finally put everything behind him.

The next day, the mayor of the city was holding a ceremony to honor Danny's heroics. Danny even showed up in his phantom form to accept an award.

"We are all here today to give our utmost gratitude to this ghost," the mayor said. He was standing at a podium in the middle of the street with just about everyone standing there and taking pictures, whether they were a tourist or a resident. "We owe him our greatest thanks for saving our town from that vicious cloud. Let this show that not _all_ ghosts are evil, and that they could be walking amongst us. Therefore, on behalf of Summerwater Resorts, I award this medal to _Danny Phantom_.

Danny, with a huge smile on his face, took the award. He lifted his arms up into the air so everyone could see him holding the medal. The medal was gold and circular, and it had the word BRAVERY engraved in it.

As Danny lifted his arms up to show everyone the medal, the thousands of people in the crowd burst with cheers and white flashes starting filling everyone's view due to all the pictures being taken. This was one of the happiest moments of his life Danny could ever remember experiencing.

_Then there was a dark picture with four spotlights spinning around in random circles over the darkly lit stage. The camera cut back to a man in his early forties, standing on a set to a television show. The set resembled a haunted house itself, or an extremely frightening looking scene. The show was _Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction_, and the man was Franklin Jones, a relatively new actor to showbiz._

"_What happened here?" he asked, trying to give the camera his best confused look, mixed with fear. "Is it really possible for a smashed bottle to awaken an ancient curse? Perhaps it was just coincidence that by the time Toby smashed the bottle, the dark cloud had set in? If so, then how do you explain Bhyrun and Nouron popping up? Were they perhaps just some people who tried to motivate Danny to fulfill his family's duties? Or were they really the spirits of a struggle that leads back to the Middle Ages?"_

_Franklin held up a medal and showed it to the camera. It was obviously the prop used near the end of reenacting the last story. It looked strikingly similar to the one that Danny was showing to everybody. "Is this story of a Descendant's Curse true, or are we clouding your logic?"_

"_We'll tell you which our stories were true and false after this message," said the announcer on _Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction

"_That's definitely 'fiction'," Madeline Fenton said as her television show went to the last commercial. "There's no way that story could be true."_

"_Madeline!" called her father into the living room. "Your mother's almost done getting her hair right, so be prepared to leave in a few minutes."_

"_All right," Madeline said. She really liked her name for some reason. She supposed it was because her father said he named her after his own mother, Maddie. Except Madeline hated being called "Maddie" so they just kept it as Madeline._

Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction_ came back on. Madeline was watching the show intently to determine how many stories she correctly identified as true or false. She heard her dad on the phone confirming reservations at the restaurant._

"_Last name's Fenton," Madeline's dad said into the phone. "F-E-N-T-O-N. First name is Daniel."_

_Madeline didn't pay any attention to it other than that. Three stories had been revealed, and Madeline had correctly identified all three of them._

"_How did you judge the story of the girls who went into the haunted house and think they saw a ghost, only to have it turn out to be a police officer but later see a figure standing in the window as they were leaving? Did you say fact or fiction?"_

"_I said fact!" Madeline yelled at the screen._

"_Did you say 'fact'?" asked Franklin to the audience. "If you did, you're correct."_

"_Yes!" Madeline yelled. "That's four out of four! Just tell me the last story was fiction and I'll have had a perfect show!"_

"_How did you judge the story of the half-human, half-ghost boy who battled his family's tormentor? Was that fact or fiction?"_

"_Fiction!" Madeline yelled. She crossed her fingers. "Please, please, please, PLEASE say it's fiction!"_

"_Did this story seem too farfetched to be true?" Franklin asked the audience. _

"_Yes!"_

"_If you thought so, you're wrong," Franklin said, putting a sad face on for the camera._

_Madeline's face dropped. "WHAT!"_

"_According to our research, this story took place about twenty years ago, in 2006. It's true."_

_Madeline couldn't believe it. The story about Danny Phantom taking on a cloud, a scientist and some dark mage actually happened?_

"_Madeline!" her father yelled, "your mother and I are heading into the car! Get in as soon as your show's over."_

"_All right, dad," Madeline said, turning the television off. She started to walk towards the doorway, but she stopped for some reason. She looked at the mantle above the family's television and saw a medal that looked EXACTLY like the one Danny Phantom had been awarded in the story._

_Confusion swept Madeline's face. She looked at the medal and saw the striking resemblance it had to the one in the last story on _Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction_. She also got confused by how much her father, Daniel, resembled the main character in the last story._

_She continued staring at the medal with those thoughts passing through her head. "Hmmm…I wonder?..." she said softly to herself._

**THE END**

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Author's Note:

Wow, would you look at that. It's been almost three months since I began writing this, but it feels like just last week when I was writing parts of the story before anyone knew Skyler was evil. After this time, my _Descendant's Curse_ project is coming to a close.

You might be interested to know that I came up with the core to this story back in July or August, but I never got the story written down, so this is a recycled one. (with some major changes made to it, of course) I started outlining this story probably a few weeks before _Split Decisions_ ended, and I was surprised with how long it took me to outline it. Believe it or not, by the time I actually started writing this and got the first chapter on the site, I _still_ didn't know Skyler's name, Bhyrun's name, or Nouron's name. Basically, I didn't come up with names for those guys until their first chapters.

I'm not going to lie; I was disappointed with the amount of reviews I got. If I got two every chapter I'd be fine, but it was pretty annoying when I was writing the teen-chapters and not getting a single review for about 6 chapters in a row. But I'm glad I got all the reviews at the end that I did. Thank you Horselver4ever, Ghostboy814 and Leppers for being my main reviewers, as well people like Jenna Dax who took the time to read my story and review it. Once again, I'm happy with the reviews I got towards the end, because you guys were reading this and giving me motivation to continue, and that was everything you guys could have done. So thank you.

Am I going to write any more _Danny Phantom_ stories? Well, I don't see why not. After all, I love writing stories of supernatural things, especially when the hero gets to be a teenager. I'm still writing _Revelations and Revenge_, so if any of you want to read it, (besides Leppers, because I know you're reading it already) please do. But after _Revelations and Revenge_, I don't know when I'll write another one, but it probably won't be until into July, possibly August.

But enough of that. After all, this is supposed to be a memoir of _Descendant's Curse_. I've had a lot of fun writing this, and it's a bonus that this has become the longest story I've ever written. I've had a lot of fun writing this, and I'm going to miss it, actually. After all, at least writing a part of a chapter has become part of my daily routine for almost a quarter of a year, and it might not be the easiest thing in the world to walk away from that. But I have more things to move on to now, but this is going to be one story I'm probably going to take with me for a while.

I'm proud of how this story turned out. I'm kind of sad that it's over, but like I said, I have more things to move on to now. Thank you all for taking the time to read and review my story. As you know, it means a lot getting feedback. Writing this (and then having to write _Revelations and Revenge)_ was very time consuming and was hard at times to balance that and school, but I love writing so it wasn't so bad. I looked forward to coming home almost every day and being able to add on to this story, and I'm a little sad to see it end.

As I write this the night before I post this final chapter, I reflect on how so much has actually happened since I started this. Once I sign at the bottom, all work on this story will officially be complete. Thank you to all for reading and reviewing _Descendant's Curse._

_Velkan the Impaler  
Monday, May 08, 2006 – 7:39 p.m. EST_


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